


Just Memories and Shadows

by Mizar



Category: Persona 3, Persona Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2020-07-20 12:49:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 39,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19992481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizar/pseuds/Mizar
Summary: A lost android and a former experiment band together to resurrect their closest friends, but the business of revival is complicated and fraught. When Minato Arisato fails to be reborn in the form of his old self and becomes a new person altogether -- Minako -- Aigis sets her free, and she flees Iwatodai for Tokyo and its Phantom Thieves. In the meanwhile, after seventeen long years, Moros' countdown to death is finally taking hold.(Takes place in a non-canon setting where the Dark Hour still exists, not all dead characters in the game are actually dead, and pulls a bit from the movies. All "chapters" here are individual scenes, some continuous with others, and some not. Each will be labeled as such.)





	1. Frankenstein's Monster

A white glow.

Darkness.

A blur of sound and a ubiquitous numbness. One sensation at a time, here and there, pinpricks in the void. A spat of endorphins. Damp trickles on skin, criss-crossing back and forth, rolling like tar and reluctantly dripping away. A comforting warmth enveloped her, and soon she sank again into the abyss, and slept deeply.

Images wandered by behind her eyelids, dreams flowing one into another. A sprite-like girl with fluffy teal hair, light and small, dancing back and forth around her, as if tending to something and always in a rush. “It’s only a partial effort,” she said, her body fading into drifting smoke. As she washed away in the wind, she stretched out a hand. “This is just a trial…”

She chased after the smoke, drifting through the dark, and found herself wandering a street covered in pink flecks raining down from the trees around her in impossible, endless flow. A little girl leaped and twirled under the shower, blurry at the edges, trails of color dragging from her clothes and into the air behind her. Floating forward, she took one of the tiny hands in hers and joined in the dance.

“You smiled this time!” the child said with a wild laugh, and the world wobbled around her, stretching at the seams. 

A distant male voice from behind them: “Its mind is active. We’re getting actual brain signals now. It’s inventing new ideas -- what could be, not what is. That’s better than before.”

She turned, and a man in a peacoat watched with petals turning to pink rivers on his clothes, a young boy next to him. “The signals imply a dream,” the boy murmured, buried up to his waist now in petals. The streets were drowning too, the sky fading to black. “Will he wake, this time?”

As the flowers drowned them all, she fell through the underside of the world, landing on a mountain of books as if they were made of cotton. Ambiguous figures skittered around below, chatting and laughing, and her perspective blurred as it stretched to fill the room, as if she could sit up here and stand down there all at once.

“I’d like lucid dreaming here, but we’re just getting REM sleep,” an old woman said, folding her hands in her lap. The hunched man next to her smiled and reached out with a book in hand.

“Here, we saved this for you! You’ll love it.” But as she reached out, it evaporated in her hand, and the mountain came tumbling down.

As she fell, a, enormous winged wolf soared out of the sky and caught her on its back, and she curled herself up in its white fur. Clouds formed walls and corridors around them, the silhouettes of people talking, reading, writing…

“Glad you’re feeling better!” A brown-haired young woman waved, her hands worn and callused, but only here and there, and she passed through one of the walls and caught sunset light on her pink clothes. “We were hoping to--”

“I’m having a hard time with any of the Dark Hour memories,” one of the students around her mumbled, fading back into the clouds as soon as he had passed by. Lightning grew in the walls, in the floor, making her hair stand on end. Shocks of pain pricked at her skin, through her body.

“It was indeed a traumatic experience -- perhaps that is a factor?”

The cloud-structure wisped away, leaving her to fall through arcs and bolts of a storm below. “We’ll force it,” said the winds. “Adapt using other materials, some of this…”

Something rattled and clanged, and then knives were flying through the air, cutting patterns into her skin, growing into a deafening roar.

“Are you sure that is wise?” said the waves below, infinitely below, like the whisper of a calm sea.

“Who’s the expert, me or you?”

“There will be other components present, then.”

The winds thrashed her back and forth, around and around, and something cold and metallic grabbed her by the arm and held her dangling.

“Doesn’t matter. We were never going to get them all. He’ll fill in the blanks from the raw material. This one might even wake up for a few minutes, if we’re lucky.”

_ Let me go! _ she yelled, but her voice vanished into the lightning. Her skin was a patchwork of tiny spider-web lines, opening and sealing and opening again, until finally the hand let her go...and down she fell, staring up at the being who had held her, its alien shape like a floating island in the sky. She splashed into the water, sinking under at once, the flares of light overhead dimming, and darkening, and vanishing.

Then, there was nothing once again.

  
  


Hazy green light faded into view. Black, gooey curtains peeled apart to show a brilliant yellow moon, round and full, gleaming overhead. She took a shuddering breath, then lapsed into a coughing fit, something oily and dark spurting out of her throat until it felt raw and dry, until she could draw a sharp breath and collapse again. Her skin ached, both too cold and too warm all at once. Squeezing her eyes shut, she rolled limp onto her chest and lay in the slimy pool, her arms weak and distant, her eyes closing. It all felt so  _ real _ now, so unlike the swirling images from before, so  _ present. _ Was this the waking world?

Lying still, she felt as if she could feel every nerve that fired, every little twitch of the hairs on her arms, every tiny motion that pulled her breath in and let it go. So many sensations, so much information, too much at once. The sheer existence of her body weighed heavy on her, physically and sensorily, but now the overwhelming swell of sound and smell and light through her eyelids kept her pulling back to consciousness every time she slipped.

Blue flickers. A shining, curved wall? And a butterfly?

_ Where am I? _

Gray eyes. A monstrous winged beast with a masked face.

Who _ am I? _

She forced her eyes open, and the moonlight was blinding. Ducking her head, she stared at the ground, a strip of cracked coal-black pavement shot through with running blood. Dark oil seeped across it, not just from her retching, but draining from her arms and legs as well. When she moved a hand into view, fresh skin showed through the tarry mess, without wrinkles or scars.  _ What? _

“Good, we get our few minutes. He’s waking up. It’s your lucky day.” Footsteps tapped toward her, and she barely managed to glance up before hands grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her up to a sitting position -- then dropped her immediately after. “Shit!”

She wiped her eyes on the back of her gooey hand ineffectively and peered at the face looking back: sharp cheeks, cobalt eyes scowling at her from behind glasses, shaggy blue hair cast dark green in the yellow light. Her head ached as flickers of memory shot through her mind, single frames at a time,  _ where have I seen him?  _

Billows of flame and towering steel machines and little capsules in hand.

A sneer and a snap of the tongue.

_ You’re...an enemy? _

Whoever he was, he scowled deeply and shoved her to the ground. Her head rattled as it struck the asphalt with a sharp crack, and she coughed and trembled in pain. “We screwed it up.”

Squinting at him, she brought his full body into wavering focus: a lanky man in a green coat, now propping open a briefcase with a laptop inside, bony fingers flying over the keys.

“We did?” A subdued female voice--

_ My only purpose is to be by your side. _

Silver and brass and white.

_ Because I will protect you. _

Dimming light and fading clouds in a darkening blue sky and a sudden flash of--

Raising a hand to her head, she took several long breaths as the images passed by. The man’s voice cut through her distraction.

“Yeah. We fucking did. Look there _. _ Does  _ she _ look right to you? What’s wrong with this picture?”

_ Do I...look right? _ She glanced down at her body, strung with black fluid. Planting her hands on the ground, she tried to push herself to her knees, but her arms wobbled and gave way. She landed with a dull splash, turning her head just in time to avoid cracking her jaw on the pavement.

“I’m impressed it’s coherent enough to try to get up.” The man set down his briefcase and approached in two swift strides, one shoe kicking aside some of the goo. “Hey. You. Listen up. Can you understand me?”

She peered up through wet bangs that clung to her forehead and cheeks. The looming figure above her crouched low, filling her view again.

“Sit still. Stop trying to move.”

She froze, eyes wide, and the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a flashlight. When he shone it into her eyes, she yelped and looked away, but he grabbed her chin and held her head still. She squinted into the light.

“Her pupils react. She can clearly hear us, too, and move around in a controlled way. More ability than I expected. I guess I’ve got bodies down pat now. Except for how it doesn’t look right  _ at all. _ ”

Spitting out another gob of oil, she peered up at the eyes glaring down from behind their shields. Could she reply? It felt like her body knew what to do, so she opened her mouth and willed words to come out. After a garbled croak, the sound came together.

“Who are you?” Her voice was hoarse and faint, but at least it worked. “Who am I?”

The blue eyes narrowed. “Tch. You don’t need to know that. Stay there while we set up the machine again.”

_ Machine? _ She glanced around again, but there was no machine in sight, just ruined buildings dripping with blood and more of that repulsive green glow. Next to her were folded limbs of something shiny like obsidian, but gnarled like roots...maybe that was a machine. It didn’t seem like one, but maybe it was. Still...hadn’t she seen all this before? Those eyes? The coat? But the man didn’t look quite right. Something was  _ different.  _ Wrong. The face was too angular, the nose too long, the eyes too small. All of it too  _ old.  _

_ There’s no cure for stupidity. _

Screaming and boiling red vapor and unholy desperation. A sound like fireworks all bursting at once. 

_ Go, now! _

Violet and yellow and red flames tangling together at once with so many other colors that it felt like a prism had detonated in the enemy’s face.

_ 01A057 sends his regards. _

And he was gone.

“Are you sure we have achieved valid data from this?” said the second voice, hidden out of view. No -- not hidden, behind her. She rolled onto her back again, then craned her head up. Her neck burned as unused muscles tightened. The stilted voice was coming from a red-cloaked blonde woman with...no. Not a woman. A  _ robot? _

“Yes, of  _ course _ I am. This is just another prototype. Not sure why it’s female, though. That’s weird. I’ll look at the brain waves later. At least it worked...but what the  _ hell? _ ”

“...H-hey.” She forced herself to rise to her elbows, pushing her body halfway up. Her shoulders ached and trembled. “You...you’re...an android?” The word felt right, if unfamiliar.  _ Android. _ She rolled it around on her tongue.

The mechanical woman stepped back in surprise, her eyes shining in an irregular shiver of light. “Do you recognize me?” She twitched a hand, half-extending a metallic arm draped in heavy wool.

“Don’t talk to it,” her companion snapped. “We have to remake it anyway. Don’t get attached to it.”

_ Remake? _ She planted a hand, but the man shoved her back down with a vengeance.

“I said to stay still. You, hook up the conduits again, so we can get this deployed. We have to melt it down. None of this came together right, and it’s getting antsy. I want to try again tomorrow night, and we only have twenty minutes left. It’ll take ten just to pick the pieces out of something this complicated. We’ll dispel the useless parts.”

_ Melt down?! _ Her eyes drifted to the holster at his side.  _ That. I need that. _ The device inside was useful, etched steel in a familiar leather sheath. That would get her out. That would save her.

Just as he leaned back to stand, she swiped her arm out at the gun -- gun? -- and snatched it away. Her muscles burned as she scooted back across the pavement, dragging the black mess with her, scraping up her legs. Her own blood mixed with the foreign pools nearby.

“Hey--  _ hey! _ ” He lunged for her and flailed for the silver handle. Twisting around hard, she threw herself out of the way and jammed the barrel to her head. Her heart raced in her ears, sweat beading up on her cheeks.

Wasn’t a gun a  _ weapon? _ Shouldn’t it be pointed at  _ him _ ?

No. Not this one.

Cold steel pressed against her temple.  _ Why? What is this? Why am I doing-- _

Her finger didn’t care for her questions. A spike of pain shot through her skull, and the sound of breaking glass rang in her ears.

_ Because I-- _

Red embers on black skin.

_ No. _

Pale hair and mechanical hands.

_ You’re not me. _

A solemn, mirthless face.

_ You can’t be me. _

Hollow gray eyes.

_ No! _

The mirror lied. That wasn’t her face, that wasn’t her hair, and those weren’t her eyes. That wasn’t  _ her. _

And yet, the voice that cried out from within was the same as the one from her half-formed memories.

“Orpheus!”

The man hurled himself at her, grabbing the hand that held her weapon, and the  _ force _ behind her howled and unleashed a fiery blast that engulfed him in blinding orange light. When the glow faded and the embers fell away--

Nothing had changed.

His frozen, fearful glare broke into laughter, and he kicked the gun out of her hand with enough force to bend her thumb far out of place. It soared end over end, clattering to the asphalt and tumbling onto the sidewalk beyond. “You’re weak. ‘Course you are. You were just  _ born. _ ” Pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, he sneered down at her and circled to stand between her and the fallen weapon. “Don’t make me tell you again…”

_Just...just born?_ She felt her eyes grow damp, tears pooling in her vision, but her jaw clenched. Her swelling hand ached. _Then_ _I can’t die yet. I can’t die like they did._

They?

_ Like I did. _

The warmth drained from her face, then raced back with a spurt of wild rage.

“Who am I? What the hell  _ is _ this?” She slammed her fist to the ground with a splash. “If you’re going to kill me, at least  _ tell me _ something first! I remember all these  _ things _ !”

He scoffed and rolled his eyes, anger cracking his tone into a low growl. “There ain’t no point in--”

“Stop.” The android stepped forward, resting a hand on his shoulder, her fingers pressing further into the cloth than her gentle motions would suggest. “...It is only fair to her. Allow me to speak to her, while you set up the machine again.”

“Nothing worse’n a sentimental computer,” he grumbled, but threw up his hands and went to retrieve his gun. “Fine. Two questions. That’s all you get. And none of this ‘spend an hour telling me what the hell.’ Two questions.”

Kneeling next to her, the android set her hands in her white and gold lap and nodded sagely. “Please, ask.”

Taking a shaky breath, she closed her eyes to think. No yes-or-no questions. That would be too easy to answer with one useless word. “Okay. First one. Who are both of you?”

The android glanced at her irritated colleague, who offered just another eye roll.

“I am Aigis,” she replied. “This is--.”

“The Resurrectionist.” The man waved a hand as if dismissing her now-answered question.

Aigis and...well, that long title. Strange, such a provincial voice with such a formal name. She nodded slowly, burning the names into her mind.

“Second. Who am  _ I? _ ”

Aigis’ LED-blue eyes gleamed and peered at her more closely. “...You are--”

“Nobody,” the Resurrectionist barked, teeth clenched in anger. “You ain’t nobody. You’re a mistake. We tried to make somebody, and  _ you _ came out instead, and besides, you’re just a Version 0.1. So lie down.”

_ I’m...nobody? _ That wasn’t right. She looked back to Aigis, who was staring down into the black goo now. “Who am I?”

“...Arisato Minako,” she murmured, too faintly for anyone but the two of them to notice.

That sounded so familiar... _ Minako, huh? _ She looked at her hands, as if investigating the new identity, and clenched her uninjured fingers into fists. That felt...almost right. Right enough. Right in all the wrong ways. “Thanks.” She kept her voice down as well, watching the frustrated man root through overgrown bloody grass to find his weapon.

The android looked away, her eyes half-closing in what Minako thought was shame.

“...Aigis?” She leaned closer. “You seem to know me. Do you know me?”

She stared back, mouth slightly open. “I…your face is...”

That was a hook. She desperately flung her arms up and grabbed the metal head on both cheeks. “Please. Look at me. Look here.” She stared as far into the glowing eyes as she could. “Please. Please…” The sounds of clattering told her that the man had nearly retrieved his gun.

“Arisato-san, I--” She swore she saw tears in the electronic eyes. Summoning what energy she had left, she threw herself into an embrace, draped out over Aigis’ lap.

\--clouds drifting by and the smell of summer flowers on the air and the slow creeping darkness from all sides--

“I’m alive. Let...let me go. I’m  _ alive. _ ” That meant something, whatever it was, and the light dimmed in that inhuman gaze just a little. “Please. Please don’t kill me…” Time to lay heavy on the emotions, no matter how little sense this made. “Don’t let me die  _ again. _ ”

The gears and motors shuddered, and Aigis held Minako to her armored chest.

“Run,” she whispered. “Run now. I will delay for you. Summon Orpheus to carry you, and run as fast as you can. Go to Iwatodai Station. You will know how to get there, I am certain of it. Please take this to clothe yourself.” She swung her cloak over Minako’s back and buttoned it across her neck.

“How...do I call him again? I don’t have the gun.”  _ My _ gun. ...Damnit, the man had  _ her _ gun. Where had he gotten it? Why was it hers?

“Like this.” Aigis pressed her forehead to Minako’s, angling it just a bit to the side. “My Evoker is in my head case. This should be close enough. Are you prepared?”

She took a long, slow breath, shivering as her skin grew cold against the metal body. “Yeah. Yeah...just run to the station, right? That’s not far.”  _ I hope. Whoever I’m supposed to be, don’t fail me now. _

“Then... _ now. _ ” A pulse rang out from where their heads touched, and the shattered-glass sound returned with a furious rush of air. Before she knew what she was doing, Orpheus had her in its arms, leaping in wild, flying lunges down the cracked asphalt, ember-bright eyes wide and fearful like her own. Sounds of battle broke out behind her, but she didn’t look back, leaving the scene of her arrival -- birth? -- creation? -- behind.

_ I’m sorry, Aigis. _

She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the words to go away. Was that even her who said them?

_ I’m sorry I can’t be the person you want me to be. _

The sounds grew distant and dim, until they disappeared into the snarling and hissing of Shadows and the rushing of alien winds.


	2. Moros, Son of Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can't run from yourself forever.
> 
> (A standalone scene taking place soon after Chapter 1. For those who saw the last version of this project, it's almost entirely the same.)

Jin stepped off the bus at the city border, briefcase in hand, coat zipped up around his chin. His breath fogged over clenched teeth, his jaw aching from the tension.

_ That robot bitch. _ Aigis was out of her usual parameters to say the least, and he hadn’t wanted a Gatling gun to the face, so their fight had been brief and painful on all sides while he tried to disengage. By the time he had dodged around her, the experiment was long gone, as was his hope for any kind of progress in the next several months. And they had gotten  _ so far.  _ Now who was going to pry into Kirijo’s hardware for him and take down the angrier Shadows for parts? Damn it all. Was she that willing to stop before he finished her side of this deal?

The squeaking of tires and pneumatic hiss of brakes told him he was alone, and for that, he was grateful. The bus was packed, because Iwatodai barely had a bus service nowadays that led outside of town; it was all trains going to regions of Japan that weren’t godforsaken hellholes. At least out here, he only saw scattered red puddles and dim green light at night, not the looming of the omnipresent tower and the hissing of Shadows who were too afraid to attack but not so afraid that they didn’t lurk. Like jackals, they were waiting for him to die, just like everyone else. How many people did the town lose every year? It wasn’t even news. Double digit suicides? That wasn’t even counting the dropouts and punks getting themselves drowned off the docks or frozen in the alleys. Nyx was alive and well in the hearts of men, or something like that. He scoffed quietly. Seven damn years he had clung to life, through ingenuity and sheer will, and he wasn't going to lie down yet.

As the square silhouette vanished into the snow flurries, Jin sighed and jammed his hand into his pocket, shivering. Speaking of freezing to death, he had to get moving. His vision blurred briefly, then settled into place, and he rubbed at his temple. A few strands of blue hair shed onto his fingers.

_ There went all my fucking work.  _ He kicked through the powder snow like a child scuffing his feet after a lecture. All those samples, all that time...that’s what he got for trying to do practical experiments instead of further simulation. They would never find those memories again. Maybe -- just  _ maybe _ \-- they could dig up more Shadows relating to SEES, but his Dark Hour scanning programs were starting to run dry. Chidori was better at long range investigation than he was, but that was a useless fact now. Chidori didn’t exist. Better not to think too hard about her, as if she had never existed at all.

He wobbled and stumbled to a tree, leaning against it to regain his footing, and the whistle of the wind in the trees grew muddled and muted.  _ Not now, Moros. _

A metallic sound replied, like whispers through a windchime. Jin shielded his eyes against the wind and peered into the sparse forest.

_ It’s not time yet. Get off my back. _

The corner of a rusted-out building pierced the snow like an ancient harpoon, and Jin hugged his briefcase to his chest as he pushed through the growing storm and into the shade of the old crumbling walls. Hiroshi, one of the first floor squatters, waved to him from just inside the entryway. A cigarette hung loosely from his lips.

“Hey Rez, you got my stuff?” he muttered as Jin brushed past him, his dark eyes the only part of him that moved. His wide, bony shoulders supported a stack of old jackets that together made a sort of insulating bubble around him, hiding how dried up he looked underneath. Jin didn’t expect him to last through the winter, just like last year, but sometimes the little bastard surprised him.

“Yeah. Mine?”

“In my room.”

The old orange-crusted door past Hiroshi inched open with a vicious whine, the air inside marginally warmer than the snowy hell outside. Shaking out his coat, Jin glanced around the dim hallway for the other residents. Most of them were probably curled up elsewhere in the building under whatever they could find, but Aoi, an older woman with an ashen face, sat huddled in the hallway under her gray blanket. For an instant, she looked like a ghost, or a monochrome photograph, only the dull rust-red around her bringing color to her cheeks.

“Rez,” she croaked, waving a knobby hand. “Are you done yet?”

“Almost.” He sighed and braced his briefcase against the wall, flicking it open. Grabbing a paper-wrapped package from under the cables inside, he tossed it to Hiroshi at the door. Dumb kid, going to all these lengths just for smokes, but if Hiroshi was willing to run the generators just for that, he wasn’t about to complain.

“Thanks, man. Grab the box right inside my space.”

Jin snapped the latches shut again. “Gotta lock your door.”

“Nah. What’ll anyone take?”

“This shit I keep getting you.” He paused next to Aoi and glanced down. “...Soon.”

A smile crept across her sunken lips, and she shrank down into her blankets. “The gods sent you, little boy. I see the wings of heaven on your back.”

Jin shrugged and stared toward the rickety scaffolding stairs to the next floor. Aoi said the same odd thing every time she saw him -- her mind was going, he figured. Still, the way she looked at him with those warm eyes made him wonder, what did she know?

“No such thing as heaven,” he said, still staring up, as if to find the place himself. The only heaven he had ever noticed, well...that was long gone, now, replaced by the last little memories held upstairs in his room. The only thing that marked his door from all the others up there was the old keychain of a witch dangling from the handle.  _ Strega _ . “Not that I’ve seen.”

Aoi’s smile broadened. “Heaven is all around us, Rez. Just look for it.” She reached out to take his hand in both of hers, and he flinched at her touch. “Everyone finds it when they die. Only a few find it while they live.”

“Never seen it, old bat.” Jin pulled away, brushing his fingers off on his pants. The warmth on his skin cooled mercifully quickly.

Rocking back and forth in her cloth pile, Aoi smiled to herself and mumbled in a sing-song voice. “There the gods live and the angels fly. The trees grow up and into the sky. Lost little children come home to play...old folk rest at the end of the day.”

He shook his head and left her to her rambling, tap-tap-tapping up the mesh stairs to the second floor. Maybe she thought her husband was off in heaven and would simply wander back down to visit. Well, that’s what Jin got for not telling anyone how this really worked.

The old man he was rebuilding wouldn’t have much to say to her, but all Aoi seemed to care about was the basics, and he didn’t have to tell her the details anyway. His scrap of Dark Hour gleamed as he pushed open the door to his room, and with the green glow billowed out a flood of warmth. Computers hummed, alive by the grace of the other residents -- so long as he provided what they wanted, they would keep his generator going through hell or high water.

Pulling off his coat, he shook the melting snow onto the floor and huddled close to his cluster. His was the warmest room in the building, now that he had half a dozen machines running on full blast day and night, and for that he was grateful as he pulled out a granola bar from his pocket. The green dome in the corner shone quietly, the only light other than his screens, and he watched it shift and pulse as he nibbled. Underneath, suspended under a twisting mound of Shadow machines, lay a thin oil-covered body -- undisturbed, as usual. The edges of its hazy silhouette writhed and shivered as they knitted together and pulled apart again and again.

Would that be Takaya one day?

_ He’ll be better than this one. _ Jin closed his eyes briefly. The old man was yet another experiment, one that should have been done by now, but he kept finding reasons to pick at the new body and fix it up just a bit better, a bit more accurate. A memory here, a tendency there. Bits and pieces salvaged from the other side, pulled from what the human subconscious knew of him. Many years meant many memories to draw from, though Aoi would probably not mind if he was missing all but the past couple of decades, anyway. Still, he couldn’t go for the real prize until he knew absolutely, beyond all doubt, that he would succeed. There could be no holes and no hitches in the plan.

A shout rang out from somewhere in the hall, and he banged his fist on the metal floor. “Knock it off!”

The voices fell silent. At least they still  _ listened. _ There were only three rules in this building: first, no one was allowed in Jin’s room but Jin himself. He could have extracted more resources from everyone here by letting them take shelter by the cluster during cold snaps, but they couldn’t find out just how he did his work. Second, all transactions between the residents here were fair, swift, and paid off. No debts. No promises. Anyone who didn’t pull their weight went out in the elements or vanished altogether. Third, when Jin told you to fuck off, you left and did whatever you were doing outdoors. Otherwise, see Rule Two.

Turning to the vent leading out to the hallway, he grabbed its control lever and yanked until the slats moved, sending hot air into the corridor outside. The others would gather on the stairs to share in the bounty, and so they would be grateful to him and keep Rule Three. Jin had come in just another ragged soul to the old building, but people who followed through and had a lot of contacts in strange places and could heat some of the building were worth their weight in gold -- or drugs, or booze, or machine parts, whatever -- and now he ran a tight enough ship that he didn’t fear traitors.

When the granola bar was gone, he climbed to his feet and pulled a flask from its hiding place inside one of the computer towers. Shaking it, he assessed how much of his new brew was left -- about a third of the flask. He tipped it up to his lips and took a single swallow, and it burned metallic and foul on his tongue. Moros whined a hoarse, steely note and faded to the back of his mind, a smoother and subtler transition than the pills had offered years ago.

One more day. One more week. One more year. The numbers etched into Moros’ metal shell would keep rewriting themselves, extending his expected life again and again, despite its best efforts to set his date of death.

As he stepped through the dome’s barrier, it peeled open around him as if he were entering a wall of water, closing neatly behind. He shifted the black chitin-alloy mess that was his Shadow machine, opening a hatch in the base to show his stored samples. With a bare hand -- odd, having to do this with skin contact -- he grabbed hold of his metaphysical ingredients and raised them into the light. They roiled and folded in on themselves, sometimes manifest, sometimes not, but seething with thought and memory nonetheless. Without some kind of contact with human life, they would fade away into the Dark Hour and become part of some other Shadow, but the red haze inside their storage container served as life enough.  _ Life that had no purpose other than this, anyway. _

He set to work stitching in the new material, shining mechanical arms twisting in the darkness like spiders’ legs, driving in and out of the fragile half-existent body laid out on the table. Building a body was one thing -- just carve one out of raw Shadow materials, good enough -- but building a mind that would make it real...that was difficult.

After all, he had seen what would happen if the mind  _ didn’t _ work out right -- you got this Minako  _ thing _ , some half-arsed Frankenstein’s Monster containing your barest scraps of memory and what tiny fragments you could glean from  _ the Great Seal itself _ , filled with a combination of Shadow putty and holes. The woven psyche gained a life of its own and shaped the body as it willed, and it had to be broken down again for the creator to try again. Takeru here would be much...tamer, than trying to revive something from  _ him. _ That was like pulling lions’ teeth.

_ Snip-snap _ went the tiny needles and clamps and cutters, even as his fingers grew sore from the delicate work. Familiar spats of numbness and the distant whine of steel reminded him that he needed to take his suppressants -- wait, hadn’t he just done that? Had the flask gone bad? Impossible...

Moros’ whirring and rattling grew louder behind him, razors clattering in a hurricane, and he groaned and leaned over the half-constructed body.

“Stop it,” he mumbled, clenching his teeth. “Shut the fuck  _ up!  _ That shit’s supposed to put you down!”

_ Not anymore. _

His heart skipped several beats, a cold fearful wave washing over him from head to feet. It bit deeper than the snow had before, and he wrapped his arms about himself.

_ You...you talk. You fucking  _ talk _ now? What the hell is this?! _

The steel clatter wavered, faded in and out, then shivered into place around as if finding its footing again. When its voice pushed through next, Moros hissed like a dry wind through an old ruin.  _ I live. _

_ You’re just my slave. Shut up and stop this nonsense. _ The words felt so hollow now, so small, that he sank to his knees and crawled under the table and curled up into a shuddering ball.

_ I am your self, and I will not be denied. _

_ Go away. Go  _ away! _ I don’t want you! _

The wind screamed in his ear, silver steel slicing away his thoughts.  _ You have no choice. Decide, or die beneath my hand. _

_ Decide  _ what?

_ Decide! _ The sound flared, drowning him, and a shock of pain burned down his spine. 

He lunged out from beneath his workbench, scrambling back to the cluster towers.  _ No. No, no, no no no no no-- _

The howling winds followed him out of the dome, but the words vanished into the storm now, Moros’ voice weakened outside the Dark Hour domain. Jin snatched up the flask he had set aside earlier and drained it, the last of the drugs landing hard with a surge of vertigo. He rolled over onto his side, his vision pulsing between clouds and clarity over, and over, and over again. A knot of nausea tangled in his stomach, and his eyes widened and focused somewhere in the infinite distance.  _ Damnit... _

He  _ couldn’t _ throw up, not now. It took about ten minutes for the full blend to have long-term effect, and these components weren’t easy to come by or quick to alchemize, so he had to last at least that--

He failed.

Clamping a palm over his mouth, he tried to choke back the stream, but it dripped out between his fingers and out his nose and over the back of his hand. He coughed and sputtered, and another surge spilled out, splattering out in front of him.  _ Shit, no...stop… _

With nothing left inside himself, and the contents of the flask pooled all across the floor, he lay gasping on his side. A thread of saliva trickled from the corner of his mouth.  _ It’s...it’s over. _

_ Truly? _

He shuddered and offered a whimper in response.

_ All mankind will come to ruin and death, but that day need not be today. You simply run away from me? You pathetic little thing. _

Jin searched for anything else to think about, but each direction was further into the growing storm.

_ Is regret all you have? Is that all you can be? _

He covered his ears, squeezing his eyes shut.  _ Stop it! Let me go! You’ve been after me for seventeen fucking years! I never asked for you! I never wanted you! Just fucking end it or get out! _

Silence. The winds faded to a slow rattle. Fingers clutching his head, Jin forced his mind into a moment’s stillness.

“Such a miserable creature.”

“Huh?” His arms fell to the floor, and he opened his weary eyes. Midnight had come already, its mellow green light blending with the dome’s glow. Across the room, perched on mechanical legs across the workbench, was a translucent silver robot with a single arm. Instead of drifting there in mute non-sentience, it had an air of awareness, like an AI watching him from a camera.

“I am thou; thou art I.”

He shoved himself to a sitting position and coughed the rest of the foul brown mess out of his mouth. “Are you here to kill me, then?”

“Will you give all that you are to understand the whole of humanity’s endless depths?”

Jin clenched his fists as the steel legs crouched deeper. “ _ Are you _ ?”

“Will you follow me into the darkest reaches of mankind?”

He slammed a hand to the floor. The spinning tops of Moros’ core slowed to a halt. “Tell me!” 

“Will you release yourself to me?”

His eyes widened, cold sweat beading on his brow, and his nails dug into his palms.

Moros stared back, eyeless though it was, and waited.

A spurt of anger twisted his face. “No.”

Pain surged through him, and in a flash of agony, he blacked out.


	3. Confluence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old enemies cross paths. 
> 
> (This is a stand-alone scene taking place on the March 7 after Chapter 2.)

As her phone buzzed to tell her it was 11:30, Mitsuru found herself driving down a lonely street, looking for the glimmer of her headlights on smooth stone. Rain pummeled the windshield, her wipers barely keeping up, and thunder rumbled in the distance. The arc of the memorial crept into view, a wide curve of polished granite standing out in the park, bearing the names of every death she could find associated with the Kirijo Group’s work since seventeen years past.

Akihiko leaned back in the passenger seat, his expression turning somber. “Mitsuru...what do you expect to find here?”

“I don’t know.” She tucked a handkerchief into her suit jacket. “The new command center thinks it picked up something around here. And...I wanted to go alone, once. My assistants hound me during the day.”

“I’ll wait for you in the car, then, unless you yell for me.” He pointed out a streetside parking slot, and Mitsuru swept into it. When she turned the engine off, the sound of rain took over completely, and she closed her eyes to listen to the raw world around her. Had she not been here for a reason, she might have taken a nap. _Imagine that -- the head of the Kirijo Group sleeping in her car in a park._

She clicked the door open and pushed her umbrella out before stepping out herself. When the door shut, Akihiko’s face inside disappeared into a respectful darkness. Mitsuru ducked under a low-hanging branch and paused in its shadow, taking in the stark image of the stone monument rising over the grass at night.

 _...Can you see us from the Seal?_ She watched water stream down its sides. _If it was your friends that let you save us, do you know we’re here for you still?_

She checked her phone: 11:45. Maybe she could have a little time to herself before tracking the signal she had seen here the past few nights. She had brought a trinket to lay at the base of it, just in case there was time, and she slipped her hand into her pocket and held onto the old charm. What Shadow had they even looted it from? That was so long ago.

As the single streetlamp nearby flickered off the raindrops, a slender, dark figure approach the stone. Mitsuru’s eyes widened.

 _Is that our signal?_ She took a step back further into the tree’s shadow and peered through the downpour. The man knelt at the foot of the slab, sitting back on his heels, and bowed his head. If this was the target, the computers had thought he was important, and on top of that, why come here after sundown in the rain?

The obvious answer was, he didn’t want to be seen, or he wanted to truly be alone. She waited and watched, drawing her coat around her against the chilly wind as it whistled through the branches overhead. The rain crashed down in swept torrents, and she pursed her lips at her decision to wear her work clothes instead of something actually water resistant.

After several minutes of silence -- prayer? Contemplation? -- the figure tugged off his hat and folded it into a pocket, removed his coat and placed it aside, then pulled his shirt over his head, all with the kind of slow reverence reserved for formal ceremony. Mitsuru leaned forward as he planted his hands on the stone’s base and bowed his head all the way to the earth, light catching on prominent ribs and bony shoulders. As the orange glow washed over his curled back, the dark block-text of a broad tattoo stood out across both shoulder blades.

01A057. The number clicked together with all the other pieces in mind, and she stifled a gasp.

 _Shirato?_ She looked over him several times in disbelief. It couldn’t be, but it had to be. The only people who knew that number were a few high ranking members of the Kirijo Group and Jin himself, and with the blue hair and general build, it couldn’t be anyone else. Still, if the grenade he threw at the top of Tartarus hadn’t killed him, the suppressants he had used should have by now, and if not that, his Persona. How was he cheating death?

She glanced away when she heard a choked cough. When she looked back, his shoulders were shaking, his muffled voice wailing into his arms without shame. _He still had friends he cared for, whether or not he opposed us._ Turning away completely, she met Akihiko’s gaze as he leaned against the window. He mouthed, _Come back?_ , but she shook her head, motioned to stay put, and ducked out into the rain. The Dark Hour was just five minutes away, and she had to know what was going on here that warranted an actual command center alert.

As she moved closer, she for a moment envied him, kowtowing and weeping -- she had never been able to let go like that, even by herself. Quiet tears felt appropriate, but there was a certain release to sobs of despair that had been trained out of her long ago. Had he been a friend, she would have rushed to comfort him; instead, she crept through the grass and the downpour, wishing she didn’t have to interrupt. People deserved some dignity in their mourning.

When she reached a few feet from the memorial, Jin lurched to his feet, turning to face her, knees bent as if ready to spring away. As she took a step back, he glared at her in surprise through his bangs, and she looked him up and down. Skinny and shadowed, he seemed almost like Takaya for a moment, but older, with angles in his face now and short, shaggy hair. The rain plastered it to his thin cheeks.

 _He’s so much older than I remember. We all are._ Mitsuru nodded once and offered a shallow bow. Jin didn’t return the gesture, only clenched his hands into loose fists.

“Shirato.”

“Kirijo.”

She broke the staredown first, turning to the stone and its names. “You’re alive. I didn’t expect that.” Her hand gestured loosely to the end of the list.

_Yoshino Chidori_

_Shirato Jin_

_Sakaki Takaya_

_Mochizuki Ryoji_

_Arisato Minato_

“We thought you died in Tartarus. No one claimed to see you since.”

“Consider me dead, then.” He scowled deeply, his eyes red and weary. “I’m fine with that.”

“What do you intend to do now?”

“If this is some stupid attempt to make up for what y’all did to us, don’t waste your breath.”

She frowned at the choked snap in his voice, though that was just like the Jin she had met before. He hadn’t changed, had he? His accent still crept out when he was angry, just like before, and the downward tilt of his head gave him the look of staring down his nose at her despite not being any taller than she was. The sheer arrogant anger in his eyes fired embers inside her.

“Overlooking your revenge site should go a long way to that, don’t you think?” She pressed her lips together and smiled bitterly. “And Sakaki’s murder of Aragaki.”

“I dunno, I ain't sure how you can call any of that equal to _child torture._ ”

“Shirato.” She narrowed her eyes and wiped the rain from them quickly.

“I’m sure you have your goons here, or I’d deck you like you deserve. It’s the _least_ of what you deserve.” He shivered, planting his hands in his pockets. Without his coat, he seemed so small, but what mass he did have was pulled tight like guitar strings. Mitsuru wasn’t about to start a fight without her old sword. Or Akihiko, for that matter. “I’ll call Chidori even for Aragaki. Everything else is still on your shoulders.”

“I’m not here to weigh lives.” Mitsuru sighed and shook her head, a blast of wind blowing her wet hair back.. “But all we can do from here is go forward. ...And as much as I have never been fond of you, to say the least, I owe you restitution like the others.”

Though the rain made it hard to tell, she thought she saw tears fall from his eyes. “I don’t want you thinking you can buy your way out of this.”

“Out of what?” Lightning flashed, and thunder rumbled over them, and she glanced up at the furious sky. “Out of your vengeance?”

“No. Out of _your_ guilt.” He took a step forward, rangy muscles tightening, and Mitsuru bristled. “I want you to remember what your family did every single day.”

“You think I don’t?”

“It ain't enough.” Jin narrowed his eyes and bared his teeth in a furious non-smile, and she met the expression with one of resignation.

“I know. But, it will never be enough.” With a heavy sigh, she moved away and stood in a firmly defensive stance. “Some of what you did was evil, but time goes by, and sins are buried. My hands are bloody, too. If you come calling for amends...I will answer.”

Her phone buzzed. 11:59. Was Jin the signal? One man shouldn’t set off that kind of alarm. She turned toward the car and waved for Akihiko to pay attention.

In less than an instant, the trees were gone, the street was scorched and split, and the memorial stood out with an iridescent blue glow. Jin took a step back and pressed a hand to his forehead, and Mitsuru braced as the wind strengthened. _So, we’re going to do this._ She sighed in resignation, glancing at Akihiko trotting across the street.

“I don’t want to fight you,” she called into the storm, any further words cut off by the sound of clanging steel. It echoed again and again, boiling up into a deafening scream, and she resisted the urge to cover her ears. _What?_

A Persona tore itself from the skinny man’s back, climbing free in a flash of light and spindly limbs like a mechanical spider, forcing Jin down to his hands and knees with a slam of a steel leg.

“It’s out of control!” Akihiko broke into a sprint, tearing his Evoker from its holster.

“Don’t!” Mitsuru skittered back and put a hand on her own nonetheless. “Don’t fight yet. Wait for it to strike first. We can do this without violence.” _I hope. I don’t want to kill him. He’s already in such pain._

Her companion obeyed, clenching his jaw, watching the beast rise up and up, unfolding into the winds. “Shit. Is _that_ Moros?”

It had to be...but it looked so different all at once. Before, it had been a toy, all rounded edges and simple pieces like a children’s robot, and Jin had seemed to treat it that way. Now it looked like a flayed machine, cables and gears holding together streamlined metal bones. Its three carved cores opened in slits to show a hollow interior, and every time it moved, the screech of a thousand steel parts split the air. A long leg stretched forward in a broad step to plant itself in the dirt, and the second extracted itself from the fallen man as if it were physically attached, down to the shake of nonexistent blood off its sharp “foot.”

She clenched her fingers around her Evoker. “Shirato! Call it off!”

“I don’t think he can hear us, Mitsuru…” Akihiko put the mock gun to his head.

“Get a hold of yourself!”

“He’s gone; give it up!”

Jin rose onto his knees, his eyes seething with wild yellow light. He brought a hand to his temple, sinking his nails into his skin, and the other pulled his glasses from his pocket and flipped the legs open. Rising to his feet as if yanked by puppet strings, he pushed his glasses onto his face. Moros took another plunging, screaming step forward.

“You don’t want to do this!” Mitsuru raised her own Evoker. “Give him a warning, Artemisia!”

Her Persona unfurled with a sharp crack, summoning cold blue flames around its arms and lashing out at the machine. Ice crystals shredded through cables and wires -- surface damage, but still damage. Moros stumbled back, its single arm thrashing to keep its balance. Jin cried out with its metallic screech, blood trickling from his nose.

“Put it the hell _down!_ ” Akihiko called out Caesar with a bare-toothed scowl, and it lunged for Moros with its sword cracking down from overhead.

The robot crouched in a bracing stance, gathered a long crystalline spear from thin air in its claw, and swung the ice-pike straight through Caesar’s chest. With the attack interrupted, it kicked the stunned Persona into a flurry of sparks. Akihiko winced and called for Caesar again, but Moros flared with violet light and blasted him off his feet with a raking laser. He landed with a thud behind Mitsuru, the ground in his wake ripped up into black smoke.

“Shit. That thing is on overdrive,” Akihiko grunted. “This isn’t like last time.”

Mitsuru charged Artemisia’s magic force in a visible flash. “It’s going to kill you if you keep fighting! We can help you!”

“Mitsuru, dammit!”

Blood trickled between Jin’s bared teeth with each panting breath. The light in his eyes rippled and pulsed, and as Mitsuru raised her Evoker to her head, Moros shuddered and ground to a brief halt.

 _He’s trying._ She took a step forward. “Can you hear me? Talk to me!” _Please. We can’t take this thing alone._ This had been an awful idea -- she had expected perhaps a skirmish with a Shadow, but not Persona on Persona battles, and not with someone this capable. She couldn’t even call for help during the Dark Hour, not without her radio…

Jin sputtered and coughed, bruises welling up on his throat as if invisible hands had grabbed hold. Moros lurched to life again, bending its immense cores forward and slamming its claw down onto his bare back. As Mitsuru winced through the steel screeching, she swore she could hear a voice inside it all.

“No,” Jin snarled from under the metal hand. “I said _no!”_

The machine howled louder, taking a shaky step forward, and one of the man’s wide eyes bloomed red behind the glow.

“Mitsuru.” Akihiko planted a hand on her shoulder. “We have to bring it down _fast._ If he can’t restrain it, it’s going to kill him while he tries. Hit that thing as hard as you can, and maybe he’ll just pass out. We can’t keep taking blows here.”

With a heavy sigh, she nodded once, holding up her Evoker.

“I won’t!” Jin collapsed onto his chest, the claw grinding him into the earth. “I _won’t!_ ”

 _Is he talking to it?_ Mitsuru fired regardless, Artemisia blasting Moros in its spinning cores. The shattering ice slammed it onto its side. Caesar was right behind, a vicious crack of lightning shooting through its shoulder and leaving melted steel in its wake. Jin gasped a breath and lurched onto his feet. Fresh bruises stained his ribs.

“One more, Caesar!”

Moros whipped a leg through the air and planted it hard -- pinning Caesar to the ground like meat on a skewer, using the momentum to stand again. Akihiko yelped as his Persona dissolved away. A fiery rain crashed down around him, catching Mitsuru as well, and water hissed off the earth as she buckled to one knee.

“Is it even taking damage?” she yelled through the metal howl.

“It has to be! Give it all you’ve got!”

Artemisia blasted away again and again, denting Moros’ armor, breaking chips out of its cores, but it stepped forward through the assault and hovered low above Jin’s hunched form. Caesar pummeled it a second and third time, the sky lighting yellow-white with each flash, until the smell of ozone filled the air and colorful afterglow streaked Mitsuru’s vision. With a warbling whine, the mechanical legs folded, plunging the base of Moros’ third core to the earth. It sat upright like a child’s top, wavering in a slow circle behind its master.

Panting, Akihiko lowered his Evoker. “Did we…”

“Shirato! Can you stand?”

Jin’s wild gaze settled on her, the yellow gleam gone now, but still he ducked and snarled.

“You’re going to kill yourself. We’re not here to fight you! You’ve lived this long -- don’t quit now!” She moved her Evoker to her left hand and held out her right. “Please. We can help you.”

The light flashed again, briefly, like a camera strobe.

“Takaya wouldn’t have wanted you to die for no reason. He always had purpose. This _isn’t_ your reason.”

Moros’ legs screamed as they pulled themselves under its body.

“Wrong answer!” Akihiko hissed, shooting her a frantic glare.

“You don’t have to work with us! Just don’t throw yourself away!”

“Bring it back down, Caesar!”

The two clashed hard, sword on claw, and both Personas wailed in pain. One spidery leg buckled, but Akihiko took a knee.

Mitsuru stepped closer, her hand still extended. “Are you _that_ desperate, that you want to bring us down with you? You said you didn’t want vengeance!”

Raising his head, Jin watched her hand, but his eyes didn't focus.

"No, no, no..."

“At least run away!”

Moros crunched down over him. Immense geared knees buried themselves in the dirt. A red glow engulfed the wounded body below its bulk.

"D-don't..."

“Go!”

The cores snapped to a stop. Three whirling rings circling them spun down with a deep groan, _tick...tick...tick_ -ing to a creeping pace. Mitsuru watched them slow with widening eyes. _Moros.._.

_Tick._

03.

_Tick._

07.

_Click-click-click…_

“No!”

Artemisia leapt forth and slammed into Moros, clamping one hand around the ring and bracing against the steel frame, dragging it opposite its motion.

_Clnk._

_2016 | 2017_

Jin’s breath caught in his throat, his eyes growing wide, as the shining hands struggled against Moros’ strength.

“Akihiko! Break it!”

He clenched his teeth and nodded. “All right. You know what to do. One more time!”

Caesar stretched up from his glowing body, gathering an electric haze around its sword. With a silent scream, it lunged at the machine, slamming the sword into the ring with enough force to rattle the entire steel frame. The tip ground against Moros’ armor, shrieking and throwing sparks.

“I can't hold this much longer!”

Akihiko screamed into the rain, and his Persona gathered the last of its strength behind its blade. As Caesar’s joints crumbled into light, its form beginning to break down, it gave one final heave.

The ring cracked.

Moros’ towering form shuddered, rattled, and fell like an immense tree onto its side. Mitsuru finally let out her breath.

“That worked.” She held out an arm for Akihiko to brace on, and he leaned hard on her. “It tried to kill him...but it couldn’t mark the date.”

“You’d think it wouldn’t need something so…” He searched for the words, waving a heavy hand about.

“Metaphorical? It’s the Dark Hour. Everything is a metaphor.” With him in tow, she approached the fallen Jin, his face pale and scratched, his bare chest beaten and bruised, a tiny white point jabbing out of his side, blood matting the grass beneath him. “He’s very wounded. I think Moros was breaking down his body even when it wasn’t directly crushing him. These injuries won’t go away with an item or two -- they’re bound to him and his Persona.”

“Let’s get him to the lab.”

“No.” Mitsuru shook her head and knelt by the unconscious body, wet hair falling over her shoulder. “The hospital.”

“Why? We can get more resources at the lab.”

She closed her eyes briefly. “I’ll transfer whatever we need to the hospital. ...He didn’t want to associate with my company, so I won’t expose him to that.”

“This man’s a murderer.”

“So am I, Akihiko.” She glanced up at him soberly. “The Kirijo Group’s sins are mine to bear now. The least I can do...is let go long enough to help him.”

“Fine. I’ll carry him. We have enough time that I can make it there before the hour’s out and we get the car working again.”

She nodded. “Be careful with him, but be as quick as you can besides.”

As Akihiko lifted Jin from the broken earth, Mitsuru approached the memorial. The shimmering gleam around it felt gently warm to the touch, like a friend’s shoulder under her hand. As she sat at the base of the stone slab, she leaned back against its polished curve, and the light crept out into a faint arc over her head and down to the ground in front of her.

 _So that was the signal..._ She looked up to see the rain pattering off the curve of light. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the old charm and laid it next to the granite wall.

When she finished catching her breath, it was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Moros' demeanor was roughly inspired by the song Cruelty from the Persona 3 movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8o0bK4PYpg )


	4. Out of the Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We return to Minako's adventures in fleeing Iwatodai. At least Tokyo isn't full of mad science? (A scene taking place soon after Minako's departure in Chapter 1.)

Minako squinted into the morning light. Orange and pink smeared across the sky, drifting in fluorescent clumps as clouds carried the sunrise colors far overhead. Skyscrapers rose all around in glistening steel and glass, and their sheer height dizzied her for a moment as she stared up. _This place is...huge._

Tokyo was a very big city, according to her spotty memory, and all signs pointed to that being true. Also far away from Iwatodai, from how long she had been on the train earlier. Good. Here, no one relevant would find her, and she could start picking up the pieces of whatever mind she was supposed to have.

Still...where to go now? As she wandered aimlessly through the market, a flood of people flowed around her, both Japanese and foreign-looking, and the quantity alone was terrifying. How did anyone get anywhere here? How was she supposed to buy food? Aigis hadn’t given her any money. She could probably palm a thing or two, but...well, where to keep a stash? She also needed actual clothes. All this “living” stuff was so hard, dammit.

Peering through the gaps in the steady stream of people, Minako skimmed what was in the nearby stalls. Lots of trinkets, which weren’t useful right now, though she wouldn’t complain about a mug or something for water...wait. Right there, next to the two blonde women, were some kind of shirts with big logos across the front. Those would work!

They weren’t within easy reach, though, and she passed by the stall a few times as she looped through the crowd. How to swipe one? Just grab it and run? No, she would get caught immediately. Maybe cause a bit of a distraction, bump a person into knocking a thing over, while the shopkeeper was busy, nab the nearest piece of clothing? Yeah, that was good -- she could do that! Quick, easy, in and out before anyone could cause problems. Done and done. 

With a quiet grin, she twisted her cloak edges under her arms to keep it in place and sauntered into a souvenir stall. What was the most easily broken thing...the teacup sets stacked in boxes over there would cause a stir. Now to wait for someone to go a little too close...just like... _that._

A blonde-haired man pushed his way up to the display, and she nudged a foot out to catch his ankle. With some sudden words she didn’t understand, he stumbled headlong into the stack of boxes, several tumbling down around him.

 _Yes!_ Minako scrambled to a rack of shirts and yanked one into her cloak. Oh, there was a skirt too, just lean across that table for a second and --

“Hey, you!” The stall’s shopkeeper whirled just as she grabbed one. She turned on a heel and lunged into the crowd, the skirt flying off its hanger. Good enough! Now to _run._

The sea of shoppers parted in yelping fits and starts, her with skirt in hand racing ahead of the angry man. A hand clamped down onto her cloak, but she yanked free and stumbled against another stall’s framework.

“Hey!” a voice yelled, and she frantically glanced around for its source. “Over here!”

Flailing toward the voice, she ducked below the heads of the crowd and plowed straight through. With squared shoulders, she covered her head as bodies thumped against her, some diving out of the way. As legs scampered away and arms pushed against her, the sea parted to show who had called out to her: a black cat with a white face and white paws. The moment it saw her, it sprinted away. 

“This way!”

She didn’t have time to ask what was going on, instead following the monochrome blur as it dashed between two stalls. Squeezing past the columns at their entrances, she saw what the cat wanted her to notice: a metal ladder -- _fire escape?_ \-- covered in tied-up banners and cloth sheets. As the shopkeeper wailed about a thief, she hunkered on the second floor platform, frozen still except for her panting.

The cat, for its part, sat across the platform from her and tapped its tail on the metal grating.

“Thanks,” she gasped, her legs burning as the adrenaline trickled away, and she stifled a laugh as she clutched the clothes to her chest. “You saved me there. I didn’t know how to get out of that…”

“No problem,” it replied, squeezing its eyes shut in what she assumed was a feline smile.

“What now?” She curled tighter as irritated voices passed by below. “I don’t think I can get away with going back through the crowd for a while.”

For its part, the cat simply sidled up next to her and butted her arm with its head. She idly scratched it behind its ears as she glanced up at the rest of the rickety stairs. They led to a door on each floor, but were those even open? Her entire body ached now, but she had time to rest and think. Hey, that had _worked._ She had made a plan, and it had _worked._ _Yessss._

“Ooh, that’s nice.” The black ears flicked against her fingers, the head twisting to change the angle of her scratching.

“Sorry. Just tell me where you want it.”

“...Wait.” The little body froze all at once, ears planing out to the side. The blue eyes flicked up to stare at her. “You can hear me? You don’t just hear meowing?”

“Uh...no…?”

“Uh oh. I...didn’t see this coming.”

Minako paused to listen to the chattering below as it faded away. “So why did you yell for me, then?” she muttered, taking a chance to peek out from behind the blanket. The crowd had turned idle and meandering again. Success, round two.

“If you can hear me, that means you’ve been to the Metaverse.” It settled onto its forelegs and put a paw under its chin in thought, very human-like. “So...uh, what’s your name?”

“Arisato Mina…” She paused before the last syllable, her tongue forming a sound that it shouldn’t have for just a moment. The motion knocked her out of her victory rush with a heavy thud. “...ko. Minako is fine.” _Mina…?_

“Minako, then! I’m Morgana. Just Morgana.” He put a paw on her knee. “Hey, hang in there. You’re probably kind of freaked out, and, uh...well...I figured something was up, because you’re kind of...naked?”

She clutched the cloak tighter around her. Right, of course a cat could see up the “dress” while she was running. “Yeah, uh. It’s...a bit of a story.”

“Turn the shirt inside out so no one can see the stuff on the front. I’ll get us a path out of here. I’m sure nobody will mind if we cut through the building...”

  


Morgana sat on her shoulder as they finally moved clear of the market, Minako’s heart racing as she tried to keep calm and not look suspicious. It probably hadn’t worked, at least the not looking suspicious part, but Morgana at least had a good idea how to get out as quickly as was reasonable. Crossing through one of the floors of the building had taken them to a little-used stairwell, which had deposited them on the first floor in an alleyway, which had finally emptied into a street that wasn’t full of shopkeepers that might have heard to catch her if they saw her. She sighed heavily as a paw patted her on the head.

“Phew.” Morgana’s tail tickled her neck as it waved. “I thought we were screwed for sure. So, we have to talk Metaverse.”

“What’s a Metaverse?” She glanced around, but no one seemed angry at her, just confused why she was talking to her cat. That was fine, and now at least she had real clothes. Well. Real-ish.

“What do you mean, what’s a Metaverse?” Morgana hopped down to the ground and trotted ahead of her through the crosswalk. On the other side of the street was a tiny grassy park, a sudden contrast to the enormous buildings around it. “It’s the reason you can hear me! It’s basically the entire human subconscious.”

She glanced up and dug the word out of her thoughts. “So...the Dark Hour?”

“What’s a Dark Hour?”

Minako made a _well there you go_ expression, accenting it with a shrug, and settled down under the tree Morgana stopped at.

“Let’s wait here a bit. You seem worn out. Maybe take a nap!” He stretched, digging his claws into the tree’s bark, and yawned. In the moment of reprieve, Minako lay back on the grass and stared up at the clouds and the walls framing her view.

Tokyo. Metaverse. Morgana. This was a _lot._ Did this Metaverse mean the Dark Hour was everywhere, not just in Iwatodai? She had no idea how to call up Orpheus again without the Evoker. The sudden rush of memories had settled down, but she couldn’t tell if that was because she was outside the Metaverse-Dark-Hour-Whatever or because her brain was coming together more. Concepts were more natural, like what a city was, what these people were doing, what she needed to do to live, even if they came out of nowhere and she didn’t remember learning them.

At least now she had some kind of friend. Were people here -- cats included -- always this helpful and nice? It was a far cry from the distant, melancholy Aigis and her angry Resurrectionist. She had seen all of an hour of Iwatodai, and while she had oddly nostalgic memories of it, the city as a whole seemed gloomy, almost post-apocalyptic. _Even though we averted the apocalypse._

They. _They_ averted it. She sighed, wishing for a moment that _she_ had ears that could slant to the sides in general discontent.

“Hey,” Morgana said with a purr in her ear. “Don’t be so down.”

“Sorry.” She folded her arms behind her head, cloak draped over her legs. “I...I’ve never been to a real city before, and this place is so big, and everything is...so new. This is a big deal, and I have maybe twenty things to figure out in the next two to three days. I’ll get it -- but it’s a lot.” Though she tried to smile again, it didn’t feel right this time, instead twisting up into something that seemed decidedly fake. She dropped the expression and sighed quietly.

“Hey, hey.” He climbed up onto her chest and curled up, tail under his chin, rumbling and warming her. “You have a Morgana now. It can’t be all that bad. My team and I will make sure everything’s okay.”

She sniffled, something blurring her eyes -- tears? Bringing a hand to her face, she wiped them away, then watched them roll down her fingertips. _Why…?_

“You’re...not a normal person, are you?” Morgana patted her cheek sympathetically. “Where are you from?”

“I think,” she mumbled, “I’m from this Metaverse.” Bloody pavement and black oil and a sickly sky...was that really what humanity looked like under its skin? Humans were terrifying. Was she even human? Why did this matter suddenly, when earlier she had been having so much fun just figuring out how to steal clothes?

The black ears pricked up. “Wait -- like me!”

“Huh?” She craned her head and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “You’re from...over there?”

“Yeah! I mean, I’m not a cat, I’m a...uh.” He rubbed a paw at his ear. “I’m...well, I’m a _me._ I guess I’m kind of like a Shadow, only I’m a real, full person! Just like you or anyone else. I just look like a cat. Y’know, cats don’t usually talk, so.”

“I didn’t actually know that.”

“Oh. Well. Yeah, they don’t.” He shrugged his tiny shoulders.

Minako gently stroked his back, letting the tears happen as they did, trying not to worry about why they had suddenly appeared. Little threads of fear raced through the back of her mind. “How did you...what do you remember about where you came from? Like how you _happened_?”

The ears flattened to either side. “I, uh. It was kind of scary. I don’t like to talk about it much. It was really weird, and I lost my memory for a long time, and--”

“I was _made._ ” She slumped back and closed her eyes, sending the tears cascading down both temples and into her hair. “Someone made me, or _someones_ , from a bunch of goo. They said I was broken. They said they had to get rid of me to try to make something better.” _She even named me after him._ The thought came out of nowhere, a name echoing in her thoughts, as if some ghost had whispered it in her ear just now: _Arisato Minato_. 

“What’s up?” Morgana butted her chin with his forehead, but she only gasped a muted sob.

 _I’m just...a copy. A cheap replacement. They didn’t even want me._ Her eyes squeezed hard as she took a long, stuffy breath.

“Don’t listen to what they said.” Morgana swatted her gently on the nose. “You’re not broken, just like I’m not broken. It doesn’t matter where you come from. What matters is who you _are._ ”

 _And I’m...I’m nobody. I’m a fake._ She rested a hand on the soft black fur, feeling the purr under her palm, and let the sun dry her steadily dampened face. “I’ll be fine…”

“C’mon. I know where we can go. Just follow where I tell you to go, okay?” He scooted down to the grass, waited for her to stand, and climbed up onto her shoulder again. “We’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”

“Where’s that?” Minako pushed her long red hair out of her face and forced herself to walk. As long as she had a place to go, it would be all right.

“My friend has a cafe. Well, my friend’s boss. But, y’know, also my friend, even if he can’t hear me talk.” Adjusting himself around the back of her neck like a living scarf, he purred in her ear as she meandered through the park and to the street on the other side.

Arisato Minato. He was so familiar now that she had a real name to put to the concept of what Aigis had wanted to see. The android herself was familiar, too -- a friend, a guardian, and a heartbroken comrade at the very end. How hard must it have been to watch the only person in the world who mattered, leave you? And then get replaced with this failure? She had just _manipulated_ Aigis into letting her flee, pulled on her mechanical heartstrings until they bled. What kind of a cold-hearted jerk did that? Maybe she should have just lay down and let herself get picked apart for Metaverse bits.

Speaking of Metaverse bits, the Resurrectionist was more of a mystery. He had been some kind of enemy, but not someone she -- er, Minato -- had _known._ Just a man in a green coat with a snidely vicious personality and a devotion to death itself. _Whatever that means._ Still, his name came back to her, at least part of it: Jin. Shorter than that ridiculous title. Maybe he had a flair for the dramatic, or maybe he didn’t like anyone knowing who he was. Still, she had no recollection of his mad-Metaverse-science, so that was a big unknown mess for her to untangle someday, if she cared to. Maybe she didn’t -- maybe she could just go live a life here instead, try to be a real person, and damn the consequences.

That sounded like a good philosophy. Damn the consequences. She wasn’t even supposed to be _alive_ , so what did it matter?

“Did you hear me?”

“Huh?” She glanced at Morgana as he waved a paw toward a side street.

“That way.” His tail waved across her chest. “Are you okay? You seem like you’ve got a lot on your mind. Is the city still confusing?”

“Uh, no. I’m just...uh. It’s weird.” She sighed hard and shook her head. “I get memories back now and then. They’re not...they don’t feel like mine, but I like to sort through them. You know, get a handle on what’s going on.”

“I picked mine up as I went through the Metaverse. If you can go there, maybe we can look for more stuff about you?”

“That won’t work.” She hung her head. “There’s nothing _me_ about me. These are just...someone else’s memories that someone gave me. But I’ll find new ones, right?”

His ears drooped. “Sorry. But...well, like I said, it’s what you do with it. We’ll find you a _you_ , and if there’s not an old one to find, we’ll find the new one, just like you said.”

“Yeah.” As the street corners passed by, cars cruising past, the sun rising higher and warming the dark pavement, Minako gathered Morgana into her arms and buried her face in his fur. “Thanks, Morgana.”

He purred and stretched out in her hold, and she felt a little less alone, a little less cold and lost. “I’ve stolen hearts before, but never a whole self -- that’ll be new!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Author's note: I am 100% aware that I have no idea what a street market in Tokyo might look like. Just roll with it.)


	5. The Experiments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For one get over something, it has to have ever ended at all. (A scene taking place soon after Confluence [Chapter 3].)

“Zero Five Seven, please enter the prep room.”

At the nurse’s urging, he shuffled forward through the cold steel door, into a tiled white room that reeked of bleach. Inside sat a row of computers and medical monitors and a small chair, all cleaned to a pristine, smelly shine. No matter how many times he came here, the overwhelming stench and the tall cold walls and the chair with the straps always made his heart race and his skin prickle. The first time, he had bitten one of the doctors enough to draw blood and made a run for the exit, only to blank out and find himself in his bed with a faint burn. They said something about a shock.

He hadn’t tried again since then.

“Sit down,” the short doctor said, the same one from last time, a little bird-like woman with thinning gray hair and tiny square reading glasses. The nurse accompanied Jin to the chair, hovering to make sure he stayed in it once he sat, securing the straps just tightly enough to tell him there was to be no resistance.

The doctor spoke as if he weren’t there. “He passed out last time. I have a substitute for the second phase of the formula. Here.” She handed the nurse a sheet of paper, and he wandered to one of the cabinets to fetch a set of vials and pull some equipment out of their slots next to the monitors. Jin craned his head to watch the materials collect in hand.

“Do we need the mask for this one?”

“Yes, bring it over here.”

He watched as the doctor stretched out a length of hose and unfurled a rubber mask with a strap. “Five percent vapor to ninety-five percent air. Increase over five minutes, one percent at a time.”

The nurse pushed the mask to his face, tightening the strap behind his head, catching some of his hair under it awkwardly. Jin winced and reached up to adjust it, and a hand tapped his fingers firmly.

“Don’t play with it.”

“I was fixing it...” he mumbled. Behind him, a sputter grew into a hiss. Something that smelled faintly sour flowed into the mask. His hands trembled.

“It’s okay,” the doctor said, kneeling next to his chair, but her tone was flat, and her eyes didn’t smile with her lips. “Just listen to my voice. Watch me. Here?” She held up a finger. “Follow this.”

He tracked it as it moved back and forth, and darkness crept into the sides of his vision.

“How are you feeling?”

“It’s getting dark. Fuzzy.”

“That’s okay. Tunnel vision is normal. Breathe slowly. In...out. Count to three between when you breathe in, and when you breathe out. Okay?”

He tried his best to match her pace, but his heart thumped faster nonetheless. Anything that played with his mind set him shaking in fear, and that was anything that they said “worked.” The room turned slowly gray around him, colors leeching out of the doctor’s skin, the nurse’s blue shirt, the dark eyes trying their hardest to look sympathetic.

He barely felt the probing of fingers on his arm, then the subsequent bite of a needle. “057 Phase 1 administered. The next will be in ten minutes.”

“Noted.”

After a minute or so, the room chilled. Jin shivered and tried to wrap his arms around himself, but the straps held him still.

“Body temperature rising by...looks like only one-point-seven degrees, Doctor.”

“That’s fine; write it down.” She turned back to Jin and offered another fake smile. “All right, we’re going to do a bit of word association. Tell me the first thing you think of when you hear what I say, okay? The first word. Let your mind wander, let it do whatever it does.”

He bobbed his head in a fearful nod.

“Red.”

“Green.” He glanced at the equipment as it beeped and spat out some kind of numbers and pictures, but he couldn’t make them out with his fuzzy gray vision.

“Green…”

Time trickled by, word after word, and he found himself replying in a daze. The nurse flitted back and forth between monitors, and at some point a cap found its way onto his head, but all of it felt like someone else was sitting in the chair instead of him. Maybe he was just flying around the room now, watching some other boy talk, someone else fidget in the chair. The constant rush of filtered air through the vents grew, as if someone had turned the dial in the control room up. Part of him wanted to fall asleep and stop watching this movie, but the distant windy sound was too ominous to ignore.

“...Water.” Why wasn’t she writing anything down now? She always wrote something down.

“Water.”

“Pipes.” It was hard to feel himself talking at all now. He fidgeted in his chair, searching for the door, but it was blurred into the wall.

“Pipes.”

“Metal.” The doctor’s arm moved at the side of his darkened vision, and he thought he heard her snap her fingers. What was that about?

“Metal.”

“Robot.” Now the mask smelled like fake orange, and cold terror rattled down his spine. He coughed once and squeaked quietly as he pulled on the straps.

“Robot.”

“Robot.” His neck felt numb, his head bobbing as if he were falling asleep.

“Robot,” she repeated, but he barely heard it. One of the monitors blared a warning.

“Ro...bot,” he muttered back, the only word he could manage. Phantom nails screamed on the steel walls, and a cold wind brushed his forehead.

“Concentrate.” The doctor raised his chin with her hand. “Breathe. Focus. What’s on your mind?”

“Robot.”

“What’s the signal?” She looked over his head to somewhere behind him. The nurse? He didn’t know anymore. Something poked his arm again.

“I think this is a go,” said a voice drowned in the scraping and screeching. He sniffed and teared up, covering his ears.

“What’s wrong?” The doctor pulled down one of his hands.

“It hurts…”

“What does?”

“It’s loud.”

“What’s loud?”

An ominous pressure welled up behind his chest, as if his heart were ready to burst open inside. He burst into tears and wailed into the mask, yanking on the straps holding him to the chair. They burrowed into his wrists. Color surged back into view, all dusky wrong shades of red and blue and violet and...

“Listen, listen--”

“It’s too loud!” he shrieked. Thrashing his head, he shook the mask around and managed to gasp some plain air. The doctor shoved it back on firmly, holding it in place. It was glued to his face, merging into his skin, overwhelmed by the twisting room around him.

“We’re almost there,” she barked over his head, her voice warping and drowning. Her face faded into a dark, red-stained, misshapen mask. The walls sprouted gnarled purple roots that flowed out over the floor. “Get him to calm down.”

“The...contraind...do that,” said the ghostly voice from somewhere around now. The doctor’s voice only made it through because she was right next to his head. “...reaction...should...pone it?”

“No.” She ducked and held Jin’s head to face her. “Listen to me. Listen to me.”

He sobbed into the mask, squeezing his eyes shut. “No no no no no--”

“ _Call it out._ ”

His ribs burned, and he arched back in the chair before hunching over himself, holding back the pain and whatever was shoving out against his chest. His clothes turned to gooey white tar that bubbled and stretched.

“I can’t!”

“ _Say it!”_

“No!”

“Zero-Five-Seven!”

“ _No!”_

“Ngh. Go get Zero-Five-Six.”

The ghostly nurse-voice said something, and a blur rushed for the door.

“Focus. Sit up and get a hold of yourself!”

He screamed in resistance, yanking his arms toward himself, curling and bending and trying to push back on what was trying to break out from inside. The chair grew up around him, bending into metal shards that each slashed into his legs, binding his bleeding limbs to itself.

A warm hand covered his own.

“Hey,” a familiar voice whispered. “Hey...it’s okay.”

“T-Takaya?”

“It’s okay.”

He leaned toward the voice, gasping and coughing through his tears. The doctor was gone, the nurse was gone, the _world_ was gone. All that was left, was one voice, one hand, one person -- not even himself. The soft pale colors of skin felt angelic compared to the mess that he had watched unfold before. “T-there’s something in m-my chest. It hurts.”

Thin arms wrapped around his shoulders. “I’m here. You’re okay, no matter what happens.”

“W-what do I d-d-do?”

“It’ll be over soon.” Fluffy hair tickled his cheek.

“Promise…?”

“Promise.”

“Am I gonna die?”

“If you do, I’ll come with you. We can see heaven together. I won’t let you go by yourself. It’s okay...”

Metal screamed inside his thoughts. His ribs swelled in and out with each breath, ready to break.

“It wants you to let it out.”

“I...I don’t want to.”

“I’m here with you. Whatever happens, I’m here too.”

The straps around him loosened, and Takaya helped him bend down onto his knees on the floor. Scooting around behind Jin, he embraced his friend again.

“The doctors won’t hurt you while I’m here.”

He sobbed once and nodded, reaching up to hold onto the frail hands. The room around him snapped back into place, all bleeding walls and rooted floor. “Don’t let go.”

“I won’t.” Closing his eyes, he let himself lean back against Takaya. _...You can...you can come out._

His chest burst open, ripping itself out onto the floor, dark insides spilling out in a sticky mound. Throwing his head back, he screamed until his lungs couldn’t wring themselves out any longer. The breath that followed was the barest gasp he could manage before another wave of pain.

“I’m here,” the voice in his ear repeated.

 _Help me,_ he wanted to say, but his throat could only shriek in agony. Gray oily haze spilled out of his torn body, spreading like a poison cloud, swelling into a howling spiral stretching up to the tangled ceiling.

“You’re okay.”

As he coughed and wheezed through the crushing pain, the mass twisted itself into three spinning cores, long mechanical legs dangling below, a single arm rotating about the upper sections. Once solidified, it dropped out of the air, and heavy steel feet cracked the remains of the tile. The robotic mind gathered itself out of his remnants, turned about in his own thoughts to face him, and screamed back.

“It’s...mad. It’s mad that it’s here. That it’s alive.”

Takaya held him as tightly as his skinny arms could manage. “What’s its name?”

Staring up at the machine as it crouched low in the small room, Jin watched dark fog and licking flames boil out of the seams in its joints and spin about its cores. It wasn’t supposed to be here. It wasn’t supposed to _wake up._ This was wrong, it was all wrong, it wanted to go _back_ , and he would go with it _\--_

“Moros.”

  
  
  


His eyes flew open as he yanked hard against his restraints. 

Where was the damage? The shattered tile? The broken monitors? The forge-red wall scars? The remains of a _normal lab_ , just steel and ceramic, no roots or blood or guts to be found? Two terrified scientists hiding behind the debris of anything they could find?

Instead, there was just...a hospital room. No tiny old woman with glasses. No lab-coated nurse. No CRT monitors wailing.

Soft silence greeted him instead, punctuated by a rhythmic beep from a heart monitor. Had...had that not happened?

No. That had happened, a long time ago. He leaned his head down to one hand, feeling sharp cheekbones under his palms, long floppy hair hanging over his forehead. For a moment, relief set in, and then sank away.

Takaya wasn’t here, either.

His arms _were_ strapped down though, with what seemed the most egregious level of fluff possible while still keeping him still, and an IV trailed out of each. One dripped watery orange liquid, the other something clear. Moros was nowhere to be found, hiding behind the numb haze in the back of his mind -- or, forced behind it. Was the orange stuff a suppressant?

It had to be, since no one other than Kirijo would have brought him here. The feeling of padded straps on his arms set his heart racing, but his body was so distant, so damn _muted._ Was that because Moros was gone? Or because they had screwed with his head? Either way, he wanted to be mad _so much_ , and he _couldn’t_ , and fury turned to cold fear instead. The heart monitor wailed as he pulled harder, trying to reach the tubes in his arms, twisting against the straps.

 _Let me go…_ He squeezed his eyes shut. Moros could destroy the room trivially...but it was daytime, and this wasn’t the old lab anymore. Personas couldn’t just show up anytime, could they?

_Could they?_

What even _was_ that orange stuff?

_Not again..._

The door clicked open, and standing in the entryway was a white coat.

  
  
  


“Hello, Moros.” Takaya stood, one hand still on Jin’s shoulder, and held up a hand toward the metal grasper.

The arm’s ring tilted, lowering the “hand” down in return.

“See? It’s all right. He’s ni--”

_Crunch._


	6. You Can't Steal a Purpose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's hard to go from hero to zero. (A chapter taking place immediately after Chapter 4: Out of the Woods.)

“So you’re finishing high school at Shujin? Well, don’t think I’m letting you stay in the attic for free just because you’ll be a senior soon.” Sojiro chuckled and reached into his spice cabinet, gathering several bottles into one hand. “Now that the Metaverse is all buttoned up, you’ve got plenty of time to run the counter.”

“Sure.” Ren sipped at his coffee and kicked his feet up on the stool next to his, watching news tickers drift by on the TV. The days felt so lazy now without anything to _do._ Time ticked by at the speed of dripping tar. “Morgana still gets a pass, right?”

“I guess you can keep your talking kitty.” He chuckled, then turned to glance at the screen and sigh. “Shido’s case is taking a long time, but I guess that’s what you get with politicians.”

Ren adjusted his glasses and finished off the mug, letting it dangle from three fingers. Yoshida had started his campaign for Prime Minister, an uphill battle though it was, and the interview with him was just ending. The ticker at the bottom of the screen mentioned the upcoming spring festivals; Okumura Foods formally announced transfer of CEO-ship to Kunikazu Okumura’s daughter; one of the psychotic break victims that was once pronounced dead has returned to his family; the Kamoshida case has moved forwar-- _wait._

_What?_

Ren waggled his coffee mug across the counter and leaned forward on his stool, flipping his legs down to rest on the rungs below. “...Boss?”

“Hey, I’m not playing fetch for you. You can get your own…” Sojiro paused as he noticed the ticker also, spices still in hand. “Well, I’ll be damned. One of them lived.”

That didn’t seem right at all. Pulling out his phone, Ren searched up the man’s name and skimmed an article. “This was months ago.”

“Huh. Shouldn’t he have been cremated?” Sojiro fired up the stove and drizzled some flour in a pan to roast. “I guess they knew about this a long while back and just didn’t talk about his treatment for a long time.”

“Could be, but…” Ren shook his head as he flicked his thumb over another article. _Akechi wouldn’t have left this kind of loose end. He was too determined._ Unfortunately, Akechi wasn’t around anymore for him to ask... “It doesn’t seem consistent with the others. He had the same symptoms, they pronounced him brain-dead. This is weird.”

“Guess miracles can happen sometimes.” The barista shrugged and stirred his pot of beef. “If you know what I mean.”

 _Metaverse tricks._ “But...we can’t do anything there, anymore. We don’t know how to get there now that the app is gone. And the only person we don’t have track of,” _is dead_ , “can’t either.”

“Trust me, you’re better off.” Sojiro sighed and turned toward him, tone suddenly falling. “We don’t know much at all about what goes on in there. Even my old research, and Wakaba’s, wasn’t enough to dredge up anything we could get a real handle on. You guys scared me when you told me what was going on.”

“Hey, it wasn’t a problem. We knew what we were doing.” He tapped out a text to the rest of the Thieves while watching the ticker roll over to the start of its list.

**Ren: Hey guys, know anything about Morishige Ichiyo?**

**Makoto: You must be watching the news.**

“Like hell you did.”

“Okay, Dad.” Ren chuckled and headed behind the bar to refill his coffee. Sojiro scowled warmly and shook his head.

**Makoto: Sis says she doesn’t know much. He’s being questioned. The psychosis case is being reopened.**

**Ryuji: shit theyre never gonna find black mask**

**Ryuji: i mean hes dead**

**Futaba: rude :P**

**Ryuji: well its true**

**Ann: as long as nobody blames us. i mean it’s not like we did it. do the cops know about the metaverse or anything yet?**

**Makoto: I don’t think so, but Sis knows that case is getting some kind of consultant. Futaba, can you get info on Teruya Kagami?**

**Futaba: “which one”**

**Makoto: She works with the Tokyo police as of recently so isn’t that enough?**

**Futaba: jk :P ok I’m on it**

Ren stared through his phone, his hair falling in his eyes. Right, he needed a haircut ever, not that it mattered that much. It would look like perpetual bed-head either way. Propping his chin on his hand, he sighed and held the phone face down.

“What’s eating you?” Sojiro swiped away his mug to fill it. “You’ve been down all week.”

“Nah.” Ren shook his head and sat up straighter. “Just thinking.”

“Mm.” The mug reappeared with a quiet tap, and Sojiro went back to his cooking with only a knowing glance back at his tenant.

Spinning the phone on his finger, Ren watched the light twirl off its case. The app was still there, but it did nothing, only crashed every time he tried to load it. Futaba said it wouldn’t let her crack it open and look at the code -- just a bunch of gibberish showed up each time, an incomprehensible mess that resembled a programming language in the way she herself resembled a walrus. It wouldn’t run on any machine she could possibly force it onto, and it refused to allow its own deletion, so there it was, useless, sitting on the Thieves’ phones and taunting them all.

Some of them. Ren was glad the others were doing fine without the Metaverse, but what was the _point_ of wandering around the city now, without the leverage they had before? It felt like he belonged here, when he could fight back against all the crap that his friends were going through, that _he_ was going through. Now, though...was it all just gone by?

On one hand, of course not. He had friends, ironclad friends, people who would jump in front of a bus for him and vice versa. People who, no matter where they went or who they met, would always be there. Not to mention Yoshida was going to let him intern with the campaign, to get him some political insight for his college days.

But, would the Thieves have to melt back into society now, and be just more powerless people? The entire reason they got together in the first place was to take advantage of the loophole the Metaverse provided in the fabric of “how things were.” It allowed so many shortcuts to changing situations, people...but now, no more. Morgana had, for reasons even he didn’t remember now, sealed that up tight.

“Hey.” Sojiro pushed his mug closer. “I don’t know what’s up, but you’ll be fine. Get out there and do something to take your mind off things.”

He started to reply, to ask something like _How did you decide what to do after you left research?_ But, his friendly probation monitor wasn’t the sort to prattle on, and he didn’t want to sound mopey. It was his job to keep morale up, after all. The Phantom Thieves were still a group, still friends, and they needed someone to glue them together.

Maybe he would go out fishing today. Kawakami might even be at his usual spot if he got lucky. She was so much happier now that a mountain of perpetual debt wasn’t hanging over her underpaid head, and he could have a relaxing day out. It was too bad, though, that now he wouldn’t have Metaverse money to call her over to clean a bit and mostly gripe about her irritations with the new second-years, but sometimes on weekends he could help grade papers while she caught up on rest. It was odd how close he had become with someone who started the past school year wanting him to be anywhere but in her classroom. _Guess all the people at school learned I wasn’t a jerk._ Well, most of the time. And most of the people.

Gathering up his rod, he waved to Sojiro and unlocked his bike that was chained up right outside the door. Well. “His.” His now, anyway, after Akechi had died and he had tracked it back to the detective’s apartment. A few nicks on the frame betrayed the hesitation with which Ren had cut the lock off, his hands shaking as he ground the steel bar in half. It wasn’t really stealing if it wasn’t even owned anymore, right? And, he had to admit, he needed _some_ proof that his memories were real, that there had been a real boy under the public mask that Akechi put up. In what had to be a moment’s break from all the tension of his work, Akechi always rode the hybrid bike at breakneck speed to the cafe, dodging traffic like the thrill-seeking type that all the Thieves were. With a wistful sigh, Ren hopped up onto the well-worn seat and zipped away, fishing rod tied awkwardly across his back. No Metaverse, and they had even taken casualties. He hadn’t had time to sort out Akechi’s situation, and now it was flat out too late. Now there was no future for the Thieves at all…

A dark cloud lurked just overhead, no matter how beautiful the day around him was.

Very few people were here at the pond, rendering it quiet and still. As he tossed his line into the water, he heard his phone buzz. He waited a few seconds to see if anything pulled on the hook, then glanced down.

**Futaba: ok got the deets on teruya**

**Futaba: tl;dr hotshot psychologist from kirijo group. her team spun off after kirijo blew up years ago. if you want my guess so far she’s one of shido’s peeps because this is totally not her real name**

**Ann: how do you know?**

**Futaba: dead ends. i jumped to someone else i’m pretty sure is her on some old paper documents but she’s redacted. still looking, give me more time. no trace of teruya kagami before her last few research papers. and kirijo was doing metaverse research**

**Yusuke: It sounds like she has something to hide.**

**Makoto: I would, too, if I were associated with Shido right now.**

**Morgana: hey guys we got something going on**

**Ann: you text? how?**

**Morgana: futaba got me a tablet**

**Ryuji: how do u carry that**

**Ryuji: and did she get it legally**

**Morgana: shut up anyway we got a new member**

**Futaba: “yes”**

**Ryuji: wut**

**Ann: we did?**

**Futaba: sweet is it that redhead with you**

**Morgana: nice security cam work you dork**

**Futaba: aw yeah i’m good**

**Morgana: anyway meet up at the cafe because we got stuff to talk about.**

Ren sighed and looked back at the water. Still no ripples. The wind was still, the sky clear and open, and the world seemed to slow to a halt around him. It was nice out here, feeling for once alone and isolated. Him, a bike laden with memories, silence, and a fishing pole.

**Ren: I’m out today, let me know how it goes**

**Morgana: you sure? this is pretty important**

**Ren: Yeah.**

He couldn’t muster up the energy to _care._ What was so urgent now that the Metaverse was gone, anyway? Morgana could deal with it.

 _Ha, ha, don’t sound like that! It’s so dismal, and it doesn’t suit you. You’re too clever to give up._ The voice crept in from the back of his mind, so familiar, exactly what he would have said. Well. What the Akechi he had known most of the time would say. Was that really the same person as the red-eyed, frothing berserker from the Ark?

“...If you’d just have said something, we wouldn’t have lost anyone. So...why?” He stared into the water as his line jostled once and then lay still. “Why didn’t you let me help you? Why did you have to wait until we were going to be useless anyway?”

“Huh?” a voice asked from behind him. “Are you talking to yourself now? I always knew you were strange, but this is new.”

He chuckled as Kawakami took her place on the crates. She was so much more lighthearted now that she wasn’t running on half the sleep she should have been, and he offered a flip of his messy bangs. “The fish have a lot to say. We’re pals.”

She offered a disbelieving nod, half a smile, and a flick of her pole that landed her hook far out in the water. “Fish must know a lot about loss, then.”

Glancing away, Ren sighed and let the pole droop.

“I had that kind of moment with Shiho, you know.”

He couldn’t muster the curious look he might have given her normally, but she made a vague motion with a hand as if to pat him on the shoulder and then returned to holding her rod. “I wondered what would have happened had she just told me, told _somebody_ , instead of jumping. But, you can’t blame people for being reluctant, when they’re ashamed of their secrets. And it wasn’t your fault you couldn’t read minds, either.”

Ren nodded numbly, pulling up his hook to see that something had nibbled away the bait.

“Is there anything I can do?” She pushed her fluffy dark hair behind her ears. “I’m here for my students, including the ones not in my class anymore, you know. That’s why you helped me -- so I can help them. And you.”

Ren sighed quietly. “...We could have done so much better. Someone died because I wasn’t observant enough. Because I just...took him for granted and didn’t think about what _he_ wanted. I...didn’t see all the harm I was doing to him. And now we -- we can’t even do what we did anymore, so what’s even the point of all this, and...ugh.”

In a moment’s pause, she yanked on her rod and then frowned when it didn’t snag its target. “I’m not good with existential crises...but I know it’s not your fault if someone doesn’t want to engage with you. Even if you made a mistake, I don’t think you can entirely blame yourself.”

“It kind of is my fault, though.”

“Hm.” She baited her hook again and tossed it back out. “And did you know anything about how he felt at the time? About what he was doing and why?”

“...No.”

“Then how can you say it’s your fault?”

“Because…” He sighed and buried his face in a hand.

“Because you want a debt you can pay off, so you can feel like you atoned for it, rather than it having happened at random and you being powerless to stop it.”

The arrow landed hard, and he winced and bit his lip. Wow, what an insult _that_ must have been _._ “...Yeah. Yeah, that’s it. But knowing it doesn’t make it feel better, does it? Knowing it wasn’t your fault and sometimes life sucks?”

Kawakami shook her head, looking up at the cloudless sky. “I still wish that all the money I paid for Takase’s life had done anything. Instead, it was just me wanting to make up for a thing I didn’t even do, then having dug myself a hole I couldn’t get out of on my own. You spent so long convincing me, and everyone else involved, of that. But, it’s easy to teach. It’s hard to learn.” She offered a bemused smile and glanced over at him. “That’s why Ryuji always tanked his exams.”

Ren chuckled despite himself. “Yeah. I guess so. But I still wouldn’t say you have it easy.”

“People like you make it easier.”

“You’re going to hit on me now that I’m not your student? So forward.” He raised a brow and grinned. 

“No!”

“And in public. Scandalous!”

“You’re the one who shouldn’t be joking about that kind of thing in public!”

“I’m just calling it how I see it…”

As his phone buzzed quietly in the background, he couldn’t hear it over the sound of a moment's laughter.


	7. The Experiments, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One little boy died, and another was born in his place. (This chapter takes place immediately after The Experiments.)

**_Decide._ **

**_Decide._ **

**_Decide._**

Searing pain.

_I did! I fucking did! I said no!_

Nerves full of lightning, overloaded, burning.

**_Their actions gave you have one more chance._ **

Drowning darkness.

_What, my chance to say yes eventually?_

Isolation.

  
  
  


“Zero-Five-Seven.”

Jin opened his eyes, the room around him solidifying into a tiled dorm room. At his bedside stood a stout man in a white coat and dark pants. Holding out a hand, he smiled, but only with his lips. “It’s eight AM. Time to wake up.”

“...dun wanna.” He pulled the covers up around his ears, hiding the looming figure overhead. “‘S too early.”

A broad hand engulfed one of his and pulled it out from beneath the blanket. “We have to stay on schedule. It’s time to take vitals. Let’s go see the others.”

“Nnnnnnngh.”

“Come on, now.”

With a mumble and a yawn, Jin -- 057, they wanted him to call himself for some reason -- swung his legs over the side of the bed, kicking the blanket aside and dangling his feet. The man’s coat smelled like the cleaner they all used to scrub down the tile and the beds, like sterile distance. He wrinkled his nose and hopped down to the floor. The plastic band around his wrist chafed in the doctor’s hand.

Vitals was a fancy word for “getting poked with stuff,” and as he stumbled behind, he ducked his head and glanced at the tube resting against the side of his arm. They had called it a “pick line,” and they said he needed it or they would have to give him a lot of shots, so he didn’t play around with it. One of the others had tried to pull hers out, and she got in a lot of trouble, and there was a lot of blood. Takaya -- right, 056 -- had been nice to her while the adults fussed, sitting and patting her hair and telling her that she would be okay no matter what happened.

He was weird, but the doctors were happy about whatever was happening to him. His eyes were yellow now, which they said was a good thing, and they kept talking about how well he was dealing with all the medicine they kept giving him. Lots of the others threw up at least, and some of them had to go to another lab because they passed out or went crazy and started hurting people, but 056 never did any of that. Instead, he made friends, and he told everyone lots of stories about what might be going on outside. The others thought he looked funny with his lemon-colored eyes and white-streaked fluffy hair, and so they wanted to know more about him, and he was good at talking to them. When he was sick from the things the doctors gave him, and was told to stay in bed, 057 sometimes snuck out of his room anyway and slept under his friend’s bed on a pile of stolen blankets. He protected people just by _being there._

“Sit down,” said one of the nurses, a short woman with a huge black braid down to her waist. She was nicer than the fat man -- at least she told everyone what the new medicine did every time it happened. This time, though, she just put the air cuff on his arm and the clip on his finger and wrote down all the numbers she usually did each day.

“...Where’s Zero-Five-Six?”

“In his room.” She drew a little blood from the tube on his arm and put a sticker with his number on the vial. “How are you feeling today?”

In his room? Oh. That meant something bad had happened -- no one got to sleep in unless they were sick. “Really tired.”

“Did you have any bad dreams or wake up last night?”

“Nah. ‘M just tired.” He leaned on the chair’s armrest and closed his eyes. 056 wasn’t dead, right? Once in a while, someone died, and while the doctors never said “dead,” they clearly meant it. “Sorry…”

“Fatigue,” she mumbled, scratching something on her clipboard. “Anything else? Did you throw up again?”

He shook his head. 

“So, no bad dreams. Any dreams at all?”

“I, uh…” Staring through the tile floor, he shrugged. “I had a dream about robots.”

“Robots?” She guided him from the chair to a scale. “What kind?”

“I dunno.”

“Did you see one you liked?”

They always asked about his dreams. He still didn’t know why, because people dreamed about all kinds of dumb stuff, but maybe they were important. “I guess. There was a big gray one that let me ride it.”

“Did it have a name?”

“No.”

She frowned and scritched a few more strokes on her papers. “Is something wrong?”

“N-no…”

Setting down her clipboard, she awkwardly ruffled his hair. “You can tell me. I want to make sure everything’s okay.”

“I...056 is in his room, right? So he’s sick?”

“He’s not feeling well, yes. Do you want to see him if he’s okay with it?”

057 bobbed his head in an energetic nod. Wow, she was being nice today. Normally, he wouldn’t get to go do anything like this until tests were over, at least until lunch or so.

“If you tell me more about your dream, we’ll walk there and talk.”

Oh. It was a deal. His shoulders slumped. “Okay, I guess.”

  
  


The little dorm room was quiet when he entered, and the nurse shut the door behind him with the softest _click_. Lying on top of twisted-up blankets, pale and covered in sweat, was a skinny boy with tangled chin-length hair and his head buried in his arms.

“Hey.” Jin wandered to the bedside and poked him in the arm gently.

“Huh...oh.” Despite obvious discomfort, the thin lips smiled genuinely in response. “Hey, were you worried about me?”

“Well, yeah -- they said you were still in bed. That means something’s wrong.”

“I’m okay.” One hand reached out to pat him on the shoulder.

That wasn’t terribly convincing through all the obvious _not okay_ signs, but at least he could talk and smile and do all the usual things except, well, get up. Maybe? Maybe he had been told to lie here instead of wander around. “What happened?”

“Don’t think about that, okay?”

He clambered up onto the bed and started sorting out the tangled hair. More white streaks were growing in now. “But I want to know.”

“I had really bad dreams.”

“Is that it? You’ve got bruises…” He pointed to the dull blue patches on Takaya’s ribs. “Did you fall?”

“No, I...um.”

That was the first time Jin had ever heard him hesitate to say something. Usually, he knew exactly what to tell people, but now, he just looked alone. Afraid. As he curled up next to his friend, heat radiated out of the thin pale skin, enough to make him sweat, too. That was way too warm…

“Did they change your medicine?”

“They gave me more of it this time. It...they say it works. But I can’t sleep much, and I’m too hot all the time, and when I did sleep, something dug into my sides so hard I thought it would break me.”

“You’re really white.”

“Yeah, that...that doesn’t go away now. They said I’m going to be like this forever.” For a second, Jin thought he heard him sniffle quietly.

“For...ever?”

“Until I die, I guess.”

He threw his arms around the skinny shoulders and shook his head. “No, you...we won’t. We won’t die. Okay?”

Takaya’s empty yellow gaze barely moved to focus on him. “We might.”

“Don’t say that.”

“As long as we go together, it’s fine.”

“Stop it…”

“Don’t be afraid.”

“We’re going to live!” He snapped the words louder than he expected, and the echo of something he couldn’t quite read burned through his thoughts.

Takaya stared, shock on his fragile face. “...You...your eyes.”

“Huh?”

“They turned blue.”

“They’re always blue.”

“No, like...the sky. They glowed.”

Jin touched his face gingerly, pulling off his thick glasses and holding his hands close to see if the blue light would catch on his fingers. They had probably already gone back to normal, because he couldn’t see any glow.

“I...I don’t know how I did that. But I knew it. I knew we weren’t going to die. I know.”

“Then, if we’re going to live, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Jin carefully pulled him close and hugged him just tightly enough to get a faint _oof_ in response. “That’s wrong. They do lots of scary things. It’s okay to be scared.”

“It’s okay to die.”

“But we won’t.”

“I know. I believe you.”

“Really?”

Bony fingers traced a weak line down the side of his temple. “Something looked out of you at me.” His eyes had the same curious, awed look as they did when he left the testing rooms lately -- huge and gold and molten. “...I think they’re almost done calling your soul out. Like they did to me. It told you we would live, and I believe it.”

“Can I stay with you?”

Takaya nodded, draping an arm over him. “You all can.”

_All?_

  
  


Deep, hollow absence, drifting into the void, silence heavier than the sea.

_Wait, don’t...don’t go…don’t leave me here..._

Barest whispers.

_Not you..._

**_Decide…_ **

**_Decide…_ **

**_Decide…_ **

_…_

_..._

_Beep_ _..._ _beep_ _...beep…_

Jin’s eyes creaked open just enough to see a tan and white blur. Voices smeared together around him, aimless and garbled, and he let his head fall to the side. Something was wrong with his arms. He twisted and pulled hard against...restraints.

 _Who--why?!_ He struggled harder before realizing that both were firmly but comfortably strapped to padded rails next to him, an IV taped to the crook of each elbow. Blankets covered him up to his chest, bandages taped onto his side below them. Some kind of medical facility, then? Had he wandered from the memorial and been found? Did the other Persona users bring him here? What was in that bag of something watery orange?

Oh. ...Right. He had been here before. He had seen these before. He had thought the white coat was a dream, and what happened after it entered the room was a blur. Whoever was standing next to him now wasn’t wearing white, but rather a comfortable shade of cool gray, which lowered his adrenaline from “terribly alert” to “rather wary.” He squinted, fumbled around the table nearby for his glasses, and finally snagged them before they tumbled to the floor.

When he pushed them onto his face, the blur solidified into the shape of a nurse. “Good afternoon, Shirato-sama. Please be careful with your arms...you were thrashing while we tried to insert the needles, so we had to restrain you. I’m sorry.”

 _That’s a new one_ , he thought with a quiet sigh, taking stock of everything that hurt. Or, rather, everything that felt it should hurt. They probably had him full of painkillers now. His mind felt numb as well, all the energy and will gone out of it, his eyes half-open in a daze. He could just lie here forever...wasn’t there something he was supposed to do, though? But the bed was comfortable, the blankets were thick and soft, and sometime while he was out, he had apparently been cleaned up. His clothes sat in a neat, washed stack on the floor nearby, along with his shoes and bags.

Wait. Clothes?

He glanced down at his hospital gown and patted his body experimentally, as far as he could reach. Nothing there — just bare skin under the gown. That meant someone had taken all those things off without his permission. The idea of all these strangers manhandling his unconscious body brought a grimace to his face, and he pulled the blankets higher up on his chest. Well, he had already fought the SEES duo shirtless, so they’d seen what he preferred they not, but even so, ugh.

He had no memories of whatever they had done to him, though -- he must have been out. Out enough to forget anyway.

“Can you hear me?”

Oh. Someone was talking to him. Right. He flopped his head to the side and peeked up at the concerned nurse. “Yeah.”

“I’m glad.” She pulled over a rolling chair and sat next to him. “I’ll update you on what happened while you were unconscious.”

“Where am I?”

“Iwatodai General, under Kirijo staff.” she replied, lifting a clipboard from the stack of machines monitoring him. “Could you confirm a few things for me?”

 _Kirijo_ . He muttered ambiguously displeased noises under his breath. _Two fucking days? Shit. I hope the body’s okay back at my room._

“Your name?”

“...Shirato Jin.”

“Date of birth?”

“Fuck if I know, 1990.”

She seemed surprised, then looked down at the papers and back up. “...You can’t remember the month and day?”

“No, I’ve _never_ known. Uh...if I ever quote it, it’s November 3rd. 1990-11-3.”

“That’s consistent at least. And your individual number?”

“Pff. Y’act like I’ve _ever_ had one of those.” _Like a street kid would get all certified._

“I see. ...Kirijo-san couldn’t confirm one, either, so we’ll assign you a stand-in number.”

“So what’s your update here? What the hell happened to me?”

“You’ve been here for two days. You showed internal bleeding and had a severely fractured rib, along with lesser injuries. We had to set and hold the rib together -- you have a metal strip there now.”

“Anything else?”

She pointed to the orange bag. “This is a Shadow blocker. It should keep you stable while you’re here. If you hear any strange voices, see any hallucinations, or experience anything else related to your Persona, call for us. You showed no Persona activity during the last Dark Hour, but one can never be too sure.”

A blocker, not a suppressant. Something far stronger than he had ever used before, certainly. No wonder he felt so hollow. If Moros was gone completely for now, that was an entire part of him stuffed in a box he couldn’t open, though for now, good riddance...maybe. Moros kept him company, even if it was a bastard sometimes. _A bastard that tried to kill me. Maybe I’m better off without it for a while._ Still, he felt empty without the machine hovering somewhere in the back of his thoughts -- empty, numb, and hollow.

“...Peachy. Anything else?” He tried to muster sarcasm, but it sounded more weary than cutting.

She ran the cap of her pen down the clipboard. “The blood transfusion is done, and we didn’t need to do surgery for the bleeding -- it stopped on its own. We ran what tests we could, and you have no signs of infection. That said, you do show many symptoms of malnutrition, and you’re underweight, so we insist you at least try to eat while you’re here.”

“I don’t turn down food. Just don’t get much of it.”

“Kirijo-san wanted to know when you woke up, so I’ll let her know. I hope you don’t mind. Unfortunately, while medical records are--”

“I get it. I’m an experiment, normal shit doesn’t apply to me, Kirijo runs this entire town, yeah, yeah.” He snapped a hand in the air dismissively. “Piss off and let me sleep.”

“Very well, Shirato-sama.”

He shrugged and closed his eyes.

This time, no one whispered in his ear to _decide_...but he swore he heard it anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I am under the impression -sama is used by servicepeople to be formal and polite. If this is incorrect, mea culpa.)


	8. Digital Devils

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Man is just a machine made of flesh. Code and thought are just the same, only one is more accessible to others. (Takes place a couple of days after Jin's arrival at the hospital in The Experiments.)

“Aigis!” Fuuka threw her arms around the robot and squeezed as hard as she could, metal shell or no. Snow fluttered off her frigid chassis as she wobbled. “We’ve been looking for you! Where have you  _ been? _ What’s going  _ on _ ?”

For a moment, her mechanical eyes smiled, but as if struck by some dread epiphany, they then darted away. “...I...I was not supposed to meet you here.” Nevertheless, she refused to let go for a little longer. “I have a task that I...I have something I want to do. I’m sorry.”

Why the stilted sound to her voice? That had stopped a while ago. Fuuka stepped back, leaving a hand on Aigis’ brass shoulder. “Can I help? I know you were having trouble after, well...after Nyx. But you were doing better. We made it through together...then you ran away. Mitsuru and I have been worried sick. Yukari still sends me emails wondering about you. What happened?”

Staring down at the broken concrete steps, Aigis bent and contemplated sitting but then settled for stepping back against the wall. In hopeful encouragement, Fuuka sat, patting the open space beside her. Her friend obeyed with a motorized whir of knees and hips, and ordinarily, the little  _ vree _ would have brought a smile to Fuuka’s face. “I have discovered something important, but telling you would cause you pain.”

The hacker offered a sympathetic smile. “You can tell me anything. You’re not bound by the First Law, you know.” She ruffled Aigis’ hair gently. “Even if it hurts, I want to help.”

“I...I can’t.” There were no moving parts in her neck beyond the spine motor, but Fuuka thought she heard the synthetic voice wobble and tighten.

“You won’t, or you  _ can’t? _ ”

“I can’t.”

Fuuka ran a thin hand through her hair as she thought. “You might have some kind of virus or hitch in your programming. If you’d like, we can look at your processes together, and you can tell me if you want anything changed.” Going inside a real person’s mind and simply tweaking it didn’t sit well with her, but presumably with consent, it was the same as therapy. Except therapy was trial and error and took a long time...this could easily help her over whatever bug was going on. Fuuka rested her chin in her hand and mulled over what might be the cause, but nothing sprang to mind. With a system as complex as the Anti-Shadow robots’ machine learning, it would require much more investigation. Still...these things didn’t usually arise spontaneously. Garbage in, garbage out, as was said. Bugs didn’t appear from nowhere.

“No. I can’t return with you.”

The unusual snap pushed her back an inch. “This isn’t like you.”

“I know.” Standing again, the robot turned with limp arms, her head leaning down just enough to suggest half-concealed despair. “I will--”

“Why are you here?” Fuuka rushed to take her by the hand, though with Aigis’ strength, holding her back was futile. “What’s this about? We’re in the middle of nowhere -- surely you weren’t here by accident. I don’t mean to interrupt whatever plans you have, but this worries me.”

“I suppose I could ask you the same.” Aigis turned to watch her, glancing once down to her hand. “Why are you here?”

“I ran across someone on the internet who claims they can resurrect the dead.” Fuuka stared, unblinking, in pleading determination. May as well let it all out here -- something might click. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Her eyes didn’t change brightness -- that had been a running joke for some time in SEES -- but nevertheless Aigis’ gaze seemed to dim. “Are you here to do the same as I?”

“I...no. I don’t believe in what they claim they can do.” She embraced her friend again, shivering from the cold metal against her, sweater or no. “We have to accept what happened. We have to move on. He’s always watching and protecting us as best he can, but we need to go out into the world he kept alive for us.”

“It feels so fresh again, as if it happened yesterday.” A whimpering  _ vrr _ followed the droop of her shoulders.

“It’s been seven years.”

“It...it has, but I...woke one day and needed to find him. I couldn’t stop myself.”

_ That’s odd. _ Fuuka tilted her head and tried to think of any moments where a foreign force could have intervened. There had been a couple of years where the Dark Hour fell silent, though now it was obvious it had never actually  _ departed _ , only become hidden, its veil disintegrating over time. Why was a mystery that she couldn’t unravel yet. “Did this start before or after we started seeing the Dark Hour again?”

“After.”

Stepping away, Fuuka turned to stare up at the dilapidated old factory. “I don’t know if this person has any clues as to why you’re having trouble, but if we’re both here…let’s pay them a visit. Afterward, if you can bring yourself to stay, I’ll do what I can to help. If not, please at least tell me where you’ll be.”

With an airless sigh, Aigis offered a sad half-smile.

_ Someone’s censoring her. How? _ Fuuka pulled her torn hoodie’s cowl over her head as she nudged the old steel panel open. The door shrieked on its hinges, but she scooted in with Aigis close behind and shut it again as quickly as she could. The robot’s thin hoof-feet tapped on the floor as she walked, though she clearly tried with each step to lower her legs slowly. The two shrugged at each other, peered into the darkness, and crept along.

The corridor stretched rusty-red ahead, weathered and old, lit by a single incandescent bulb straining against the darkness. A musty, stagnant smell hung in the air, the reek of disrepair both human and structural. As her eyes adjusted, Fuuka inched toward the distant stairwell, careful to keep her footsteps light. Why would someone claiming to bring the dead back to life be living in a place like this?

The rumors of this miracle worker had been hard to find; she had to go down several rabbit holes to even see more than one at a time. Browsing Iwatodai conspiracy theories was a good way to start, but then it required some darknet digging. Rooting around the odd corners of the internet was a guilty pleasure, but even so, she always liked to check on what Iwatodai was doing while she was away -- but a nagging thought told her to research further. The stories were awfully detailed, not about zombies or monsters, but about literal dead returning as if nothing had happened, just a bit worse for wear in the mind. Just one or two...but there were pictures. A man holding his death certificate. Everyone said it was Photoshopped.

She wasn’t so sure, and neither was Mitsuru, once informed. There had to be some trick here, something more real than that. Not true resurrection, but real enough to fool someone in person.

_ The Dark Hour does odd things. _ At Mitsuru’s request, she had decided to look into the matter. Sure, she hadn’t mentioned in the report that she had managed to track down through some very roundabout means where the person doing the reviving was located, and that she figured the best way to handle this was to make a deal and scope it out...but, details. Mitsuru had enough to worry about. This would be straightforward and quick.

A mound of rags sat at the base of the staircase. Lucia had seen an odd signal coming from the second floor the previous night, and there was no other entrance in sight, so she would have to pass by the pile and hopefully not draw attention. With a neutral half-smile, she kept her slow pace and didn’t look down. Long ago, this would have been difficult...but after Nyx, nothing in the real world felt particularly frightening. Perhaps that wasn’t good, but it was what it was. Behind her back, Fuuka motioned for Aigis to stop while she proceeded.

The rags turned out to be an old woman, wispy white hair hanging over her cheeks, eyes half-closed. As Fuuka wandered by, doing her best to look at home, she sat motionless and mumbled something to herself so lightly that it seemed even she herself might not hear it. The stairs creaked as Fuuka stepped onto them, but the mound still made no response, and she ascended to the halfway bend in the stairwell with its squatter seemingly none the wiser.

“Are you Rez’s friend?” a faint voice croaked, and Fuuka flinched in surprise. Glancing back down, she saw the old woman looking at her through one eye, her head turned barely far enough to see. Well, that was a chance taken -- she hadn’t expected to succeed.

_ Still, who’s Rez? _ Maybe “rez” for “resurrect?” Like in a video game? “Yes, I’m here to see him.” She turned to continue up.

“Rez is gone for a while.” A frail hand waved to her from under the rags, then slipped back into its warm pocket again. “I worry for him, but he always comes home, like a lost kitty-cat.”

Fuuka tried not to wince. Now that someone knew she was here, she couldn’t just go up and glance at the source of the signal. Then again, if “Rez” wasn’t around, she could wait for midnight and take a look when everyone else was in their coffins.

“Do you mind if I make sure?”

“Do you know him?” Though the question was obviously related to the issue at hand, she said it as if she were simply making conversation over tea. “He’s a good boy.”

“Ah...by proxy, really...” Well, that was an obvious lie, but maybe it came across as nervous instead of blatantly false. “My friend and I got a tip that someone our contact knew could help us with...an incident.”

“Yes, he’s helping me with my husband.”

Her gaze fell. This poor old lady lived on some rusty stairs, in an old hollowed-out shell of a building, wearing clothes that looked months old and smelled half that, waiting for a strange man to bring her love back. “I...are you sure it will work?” She beckoned Aigis with a crook of her hand and descended the stairs to kneel by the rags.

“He’s a good boy,” she repeated. “I know he’ll do it.”

“What’s your name?”

The toothless mouth smiled. “We’re all friends here, so you can call me Aoi.”

“I’m,”  _ quick, come up with a name, any name, _ “Yamada Mariko. This is my friend Takumi Sayuri.”

“Hello, children.”

Fuuka tilted her head faintly toward the upstairs, moved aside, and let Aigis take her place. While the robot chatted with Aoi, attempting to be as distracting as possible, Fuuka padded up the stairs.

The second floor yielded nothing but more rusty hallways and doors that all looked the same, so she moved up to the third floor and searched the length of the corridors there. Just the same, door after door -- they had to be old offices -- but right at the stairwell was one that looked subtly different. It took a few glances up and down for Fuuka to see something new: a metal keychain of a witch on a broomstick hanging from the handle.

_ A witch? _ Well, if it was the only one who looked different, it bore a look. She turned the handle -- locked. Of course. She should have left Aigis to do this, since the robot knew how to pick locks trivially…

Glancing over the half-corroded banister, she did her best to stare into Aigis’ fluffy hair and draw attention, until blue eyes glanced up at her. Aoi and she gestured at each other, exchanged a few polite words, and Aigis made to leave. Glancing over her shoulder, she peeked upward; Fuuka mouthed  _ It’s locked _ and ducked away. Aoi presumably distracted or fallen back asleep, Aigis flicked herself up two stories and swung over the railing with barely a moment’s hold on its rickety bars. For a more than a person’s weight in metal and motors, she made surprisingly little sound beyond the quick thump of her landing.

“Pardon me.” She pressed her hand to the keyhole, waited a moment in silence, and then turned the handle and pushed it open.  _ I have to get some lockpicks if this is my new way of finding information. Then again, I’m not a thief... _

Heat washed out, the glow of computer lights shining in the dark ahead. When the two crept in and shut the door, Fuuka turned to see a faintly green dome surrounding shiny black machines and a metal work table. On the table was an oily shape, vaguely humanoid, seemingly in a kind of stasis.

“What  _ is _ that?” She crept over while Aigis approached the cluster. “This...this is Dark Hour equipment. How is it even here?” The dome glittered as she approached, and when she reached a hand through its perimeter, the familiar sickly warmth of the other side’s humid air coated her fingers. The spindly arms and their bases looked made of the same chitinous black shell as Tartarus’ exterior. When she laid a hand on one, it radiated warmth back into her palm; when she sniffed the oily sheen over the body, it smelled like Shadow blood. When she glanced back, Aigis was holding a flask and peeking into its depths.

“What does it smell like?” Fuuka stopped short of ducking entirely into the dome, pulling herself away.

“A number of distilled materials from Tartarus.” She shook the flask a couple of times. “There is barely any liquid left inside.”

“I’d like a sample, if we can get a few drops. Hold on.” While she hadn’t brought any proper chemical vials, she did have a clean sandwich bag from home. That would be at least something. Holding it open, she shook it to get Aigis’ attention. “Shake it out in here.”

With a briefly rueful glance, the robot rattled out the last bit of liquid inside, and it pooled cloudy orange-brown in a corner of the bag. Fuuka squeezed out the air as best she could and sealed the top, then tucked it into her sweater pocket. “I can get Mitsuru to check this out.”

While Aigis wandered toward the dome, Fuuka crouched at the computer cluster. Who needed that many towers? None of them were linked to the Dark Hour bubble by wire. Maybe there was a password written nearby. Maybe the connection was wireless, like Mitsuru’s radio.

_ Is this too much? _ She reached into her pocket and fumbled with her phone. Was it worth it to break into this man’s systems? She wasn’t here to dig through personal matters. The dome was evidence enough to tell Mitsuru that something was iffy out here. Raising her phone, she took several photos of the room, then circled the dome to catch video and more shots. Aigis tightened her grip on the flask and stared at it blankly.

“Hey, are you all right? Let’s get a couple of samples from the...whatever this is, and then leave. I don’t want to cause any damage. If we need to, we can come back at midnight.” Fuuka gestured to the vaguely human-shaped oil blob.

Aigis didn’t respond, only took another sniff of the flask.

“Is something wrong with your chemical sensors?”

“This shouldn’t be empty.”

“How do you know?” For once, Fuuka was too worried to come close, only extended her hand. “Would you let me see that?”

“I…”

The idea coalesced slowly: Aigis knew this person. There was history here, covered over and untold. She set a shaky hand on the robot’s shoulder, both to ask her to stay in place and to attempt reassurance. “We’ve been friends for a long time. No matter what happened to your programming, it will be all right. You can tell me whatever you’re allowed to.”

The cobalt eyes bored hard into the side of the flask. If Junpei were here, he would comment that they should “really install lasers in her eyes”...

“Do you know Rez?”

“Yes...yes. I know him.”

“Is he someone we know?”

“I could say that, but I will not. It would violate…”

“The terms of your agreement.”

Her voice locked up again, a stiff monotone. “I cannot validate your guess.”

_ He doesn’t want us, specifically, to know who he is. _ Was this the same as her mental block bug, or was this just a verbal agreement now? It was hard to tell from the outside like this. Still, there weren’t many options for Rez’s identity of people they did know. Either it could be SEES, or...well...well, who? She hadn’t looked very far, but there wasn’t anything about the other side she had dug up past Iwatodai conspiracy theories. Strega and Ikutsuki were dead. Mitsuru had confirmed that none of the Kirijo Group’s researchers were in the Dark Hour. This had to be a separate person from all of the major incident seven years ago.

Turning away from Aigis, she sighed and held onto the warm chitin machines. Leaning over the body, she reached down with a second sandwich bag covering her hand and gently pulled a coin-sized piece --

_ \-- Warm dark eyes cast orange and honey in the evening light, gleaming silk kimono and smiles all about, promises for the future-- _

She yanked her hand away, no sample taken. “This is...memories. This is how you revive someone...with memories.” Quietly, she shook her head, the warmth draining briefly from her face in shock. “That’s not...or is it? What does it mean if you create a new person with exactly the same memories as the old one?”

Aigis tilted her head,  _ vrp _ . “That is a philosophical question that has no consensus at the moment.”

_ It was rhetorical, but... _ Still, she took several steps out of the green dome, bowed in respect to the half-assembled body, and stared in disbelief. How one built a literal human body was the next question, but she had seen enough. Any more would be too much to process right now.

“I need to get back to Mitsuru with this. Would you…” She extended a tentative hand.

“I’m sorry.” Aigis bowed deeply and watched her with sorrowful eyes. “I wish I could. I truly wish I could. I suppose I have, as you say, ‘made a deal with a devil.’”

“May I take a picture as proof I saw you?”

“Please.”

After the quick snapshot, Fuuka threw her arms around Aigis and hugged her tight. “Whatever deal you made, we’ll find a way to undo. And whatever devil it is, we’ll find a way to fight it.”


	9. Integration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet the team.

Minako perched on the barstool, twisting lazily in place as she watched the new faces pass by. Ann, very Western-looking for someone only a quarter foreign, and awfully pretty. Makoto, stern-faced but welcoming all the same, with piercing red eyes that she couldn’t quite look away from. Morgana, fluffy and just a little haughty, chilling on the next stool over. Yusuke, tall and elegant,  _ and did I mention elegant _ , with his perpetual look of distraction and constant pencil-twiddling as he sketched on a napkin. Ryuji, sprawling over an entire booth seat, feet kicked up and curry bowl in hand. Futaba, carrot-red hair half-brushed, lurking in the back of the cafe with her laptop. Notably missing, apparently, were Haru and Ren, both occupied and to be met later.

“Morgana says you’re from the Metaverse,” Ann offered, sipping on a latte. “How does that work?”

Finger-combing her hair into place, Minako tried not to duck away. May as well be forthright with the people who had saved her from utter confusion...and they did seem awfully nice. A lot like her -- er, well, sort of -- friends back in Iwatodai, a group brought together by mutual fate. Taking a deep breath of the warm, coffee-scented cafe air, she let herself relax against the bar counter.

“Well…” She warmed her hands on her mug. It tasted much better than the Chagall Cafe stuff, which she shouldn’t even recognize.  _ Ngh. _ “It’s weird. So, I guess...let’s start from the beginning?”

“A fine place.” Yusuke tilted his impromptu sketchbook and drew a few more lines. Minako watched his hand move.  _ He’s really cute _ . “Most stories do.”

“Fo--Yusuke!” Morgana rolled his eyes.

“It’s true! Not all, though, and--”

“Anyway.”

Minako cleared her throat. “Right. Well…” She stared at the intrigued gazes and found herself silent. Took a sip of coffee. Wondered how she had gotten herself into this. Would they even care? Would they want to know any of this, really? Was it just polite conversation, one of those “how are you” “fine” moments? It didn’t seem that way, but...well, all this was both old and new at once.  _ What would you have done back then? _

... _ That’s not me, is it? _

_...Yeah. That was me. Sort of. _

May as well make use of it and plow ahead, shameless.

“I’m not a person. I mean, I am. But I’m not.”

“You seem pretty person-like to me!” Ryuji scooped curry into his mouth, dripping some of the sauce on his shirt. Without seeming to think, Ann reached over and wiped it off with her napkin. “But hey. Go on.”

“I mean, I’m not a human. Sort of. I wasn’t born, like the normal way. I, uh...I’m a rebuild of someone. I guess?” She glanced across her audience, hoping not to see a wince or grimace. Mostly she saw curiosity, with Yusuke unreadable, his storm-gray eyes calm and deep.

“So you’re a robot clone?” Futaba peeked over her computer, grinning, still curled back as if wary to talk to her and yet intrigued all at once.

Minako laughed outright, fumbling her coffee. “No, not like that! Though that’d be awesome.”  _ I knew a robot once! Uh...twice? _ “No, I’m a fleshy thing, not a robot thing. But I was, I guess, put together from Metaverse stuff and someone else’s memories.”

Silence. Her smile held artificially, pinned to the sides of her face, and she glanced nervously back and forth. Not even a cough. Her mind added crickets chirping in the background.  _ That’s one way to kill the mood, huh? _

“Well, that was a lot -- but I think I’m real! I hope I’m real. I’m here, right?”

“So you’re a biological clone?” Futaba’s orange brows furrowed.

She looked down at her hands, making a show of demonstrably turning them over. “Not a clone, more like, uh, a new body. They said I was supposed to be a boy. The people who made me. But I turned out this way, and they were going to take me apart and try again, so I got up and ran off. A friend helped me escape.”  _ Sorry, Aigis. _ She chewed on her lip. Maybe bringing the whole “death” thing into this wasn’t such a good idea just yet.

“For real? That’s like something out of a movie!” Ryuji spun his near-empty bowl on a finger before catching it halfway to the floor. “Dude, someone needs to make that. I’d watch the heck out of it. But man, eff those guys trying to kill you. Didn’t they know you were alive?”

“I...yeah. They did.” Her shoulders slumped.

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Morgana interrupted, hopping onto her lap. “This is heavy stuff for an introduction.”

“No, it actually helps. You guys make me feel kind of at home.” Minako sipped the coffee warily, her tongue still aching from an earlier burn. “I know one of the people just wanted the boy I was made to be, back. I’m just really sad I can’t be that for her. The other guy is, uh, he was a real jerk.”

“You’re yourself,” Yusuke said with a quiet smile, setting his pencil down as if finally figuring out the conclusion he had been inscrutably mulling over since the start of the conversation. “Even a pristine copy would have new experiences and change as a person.”

“I know, but I just want her to be okay.” She set the mug aside, barely making it to the counter, and Morgana pushed it farther on. “Maybe that’s just because he would’ve wanted it.”

“They’re your feelings.” Makoto whacked Ryuji’s wrist with two fingers before he could try the bowl-spin again. He set his curry down with a yelp. “It doesn’t matter why they’re there; they’re yours, and yours alone. They’re real. And we, at least, respect that.”

_ They’re real. _ “Am I real?” She failed to stop the crackle in her voice.

“Hey, Morgana.” Futaba twirled her hair with a clean chopstick. “Bite her.”

“I don’t bite ladies!”

“Oh, really?”

“Not like that either!”

“Aww.” Minako pulled him into her arms and gently bit his ear.

“ _ Hey! _ ”

“Am I real?”

“Yeah, you’re real! That felt weird!”

Humor or not, the confirmation was a relief. Her whirlwind introduction seemed to have gone well? The group -- the Phantom Thieves, apparently? -- felt welcoming but curious, which surprised her; she had expected far worse, something more along the lines of revulsion or horror.

_ Like being home at the dorm, everyone gathered around. _ The silly one, the practical one, the confidently put-together one, the sage-like pet...they were all here.

Ann stirred her curry idly as she thought aloud. “So...tell us about where you’re from. The Metaverse here doesn’t let you just...just build people. I think? And Morgana says you took a train here. Does that mean there’s another Metaverse somewhere else? An extension of the same thing?”

“I’m only a few days old, really. I don’t get it either. I just know I’m from Iwatodai, and the Metaverse there doesn’t work like Morgana says. We call it the Dark Hour, and it’s an hour at midnight that no one else can see. Time outside just...well, stops.”

“I’ve seen this anime!” Ryuji and Futaba interrupted at once. Morgana shushed them.

“Let them talk!” Minako scratched his ears and laughed. “It’s a pretty scary time. The school turns into a huge tower that’s like...uh, what did we figure out...half a mile high, give or take? And at the top, a god of death was due to come down and kill the whole world if we didn’t stop it. So I -- uh. So the people there did.”  _ I did, didn’t I? Why can’t I remember what happened after?  _ A shining golden egg, out of which would hatch the destruction of the world…

“What’s Iwatodai?” Ann reached for her phone.

“Way ahead of you.” Futaba turned her computer around to show a too-familiar set of pictures and a street map. Minako winced, memories flickering back with each image. “A city made by Kirijo Electronics, specifically for their headquarters and general R&D. The island offshore of the main city is even totally artificial.”

_ Where they did experiments on kids and tried to end the world. _ The train to Port Island. The school. The industrial hell to the west. The Moonlight Bridge. The wind turbine.  _ All fake. All some...what do they call it? Potemkin village. Even if people actually live there. _

“What you’re saying is, the person used to make you, and his friends, saved the world?” Makoto leaned toward the map and traced her eyes over the outline of the city. “That’s...that seems to be a theme. Maybe each Metaverse has a dominant god. But that means, was it really a world class threat, either here or there?”

“That’s what I was told.” Minako shrugged and pointed to the island. “That’s where the tower was. Everyone we knew related to the Dark Hour told us that Nyx was going to destroy the world, because humanity was in despair and wanted death.”

“A strange conclusion to draw,” Yusuke said with a faint smile. He closed his eyes and pushed his napkin about with his pencil. “Humanity hasn’t ever wanted simply  _ one thing. _ If it did, we would see a singular theme throughout history in all artistic works. Prominent though many themes are, there isn’t agreement on  _ one.  _ Also, if there were, it seems likely to be  _ survival _ .”

“Yeah, I never understood the ‘everyone is suicidal’ bit.” Jin and his still-ambiguously-remembered pale friend had been intent on ending everyone, but even they didn’t seem like they  _ wanted _ to lie down and die. Something about being doomed anyway.  _ Apparently not. _

“This says a lot.” Morgana paced in a circle in Minako’s lap and sat down, curling his tail against his side. “For one, Yaldabaoth said he knew humanity wanted to be a bunch of sheep, right? And this Nyx said she knew they wanted to die. Maybe these gods only have influence over a small area -- they show up because of what the local population thinks. And maybe they have no clue about humanity and are just making stuff up because of their nature.”

“Could be the opposite.” Minako leaned back against the counter and sipped on her coffee. “Maybe the area is that way, because the god showed up. After all, Iwatodai can’t be the most depressing city out there, and we don’t see random towns dropping dead, right? Maybe Nyx was called out, the Metaverse showed up, and then everyone lost their will to live.”

“That doesn’t answer the question of where they come from, then.” Makoto stared out through the cafe’s glass windows, as if remembering something. “If they just show up out of nowhere and twist the local population...I’m not sure that makes much sense. I think they come from societal trends. But them being local, that’s quite possible.”

Murmurs took over the table, and Minako closed her eyes. What had Nyx been like? An enormous sphere, the Dark Hour’s moon, with an all-seeing eye. Also a great winged creature with a mask and an enormous sword. Also a boy named Ryoji.  _...Wait. _

Ryoji had been chilling in the back of her -- well, Minato’s -- mind for a long time, right? And he was a chatty, enthusiastic person who rolled with the situation, a permanent optimist. Minato was a silent, chill, melancholy type who mostly kept to himself, and he was little like her in the end.

_ Am I both of them, then? _ If Jin had picked up parts of both and not realized he had two different personalities in hand, Ryoji’s behavior might be why he kept getting bad results. Why the sex change, was still a question, but it would explain why she was socially more like Ryoji than Minato.  _ Does that mean Nyx herself is part of her own seal? _ After all, Ryoji had said he was a facet of Nyx.  _ Or that Ryoji had started becoming a separate person, more him than her? _ But Minako had never been a researcher, and there was really no one to ask. Her memory wasn’t quite reliable enough yet, either.  _ So am I some force of death? _

Maybe. Maybe not. The coffee tasted just bitter enough on her tongue to keep her alert, but her mind kept drifting off to recall images and voices and all sorts of memories it could dredge in part or full. On the Moonlight Bridge, Ryoji had seemed to sad to announce who he was,  _ what _ he was, and what he felt forced to do. Was that Nyx being remorseful, or had Ryoji drawn enough humanity from Minato that he had his own conscience? What even were gods? Too many questions. Maybe Ryoji had even stolen Minato’s old intended personality, and that’s why her old self was so subdued. Who knew?

“...llo?”

She blinked out of her trance. “Oh, uh, sorry.”

“You must be really tired.” Ann pointed up the stairs. “Ren says you can sleep on his couch if you want. He’s a good guy. I’ll go up and get out some blankets -- it’s a pretty rickety place, and it’s cold up there.”

“Right...yeah. I could use a nap.” She stood and ambled to the stairs, then held the railing and glanced back. “I know this is weird, but...anyone want to go up with me? I feel pretty alone out here. Maybe even just Morgana?”

“Of course!” The cat clambered up the back of her shirt and perched on her shoulder. “I double as a fuzzy scarf.”

“I’m fine stealing Ren’s futon and staying on my laptop,” Futaba offered. “I want to get practice meeting people, and...well, you probably want a girl, right?”

“I guess?” Minako shrugged. “...Hey. Can Yusuke stay?”

“Of course,” he said before Ryuji could finish a protest. “My sketching is very quiet.”

“Whoever else, you can, too. I’ve just got a lot to think on, and I like knowing people are there.”

Ann scooted out of the booth and put a hand on Minako’s shoulder. “Dibs on the kotatsu. I’ve got magazines and all to read, so I’m good. And we all have phones.”

“Man, I’m loud as heck. But, uh, I’ll try not to wake you up too much.”

“Let me call my sister -- I said I’d meet her for a late lunch, but honestly, this is important. She’ll understand.”

With the Thieves in tow, Minako stumbled up the stairs, her legs wobbly with the sudden fatigue. Now that the tension and adrenaline were gone, all her earlier panic drifting away, she collapsed onto the couch. One limp hand whacked at the cushion. “‘Ey Yusuke?”

“Yes?” He set down his bag and dug around for a proper sheet of paper.

“Wanna sit here?” Her eyes dragged to him, half-open, and she pointed to the open space next to her head.

“If you would like.”

Ann and Makoto glanced at each other, and Futaba snickered from the futon as if some great secret were going unsaid. With a vague shrug and a determined heave, Minako shoved herself over to rest her head on Yusuke’s legs. “I’m a lap-desk.”

He set his sketchbook gently on her head, and the brief shade put her right to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not thrilled about this chapter, but Minako had to meet the Thieves somehow. My least liked thing to write in a longer work is, aside from transition scenes, dialogue sections with more than 3 or so characters. It's hard to remember to give them all things to say, and it's a stretch to juggle so many personalities at once; I forgot about Ann at least four times during this whole section. Also, you can't rely on pronouns as much, because there are several he's and she's, so people get confused, and now using their names constantly looks repetitive and weird.
> 
> That's why this is so short compared to the others.


	10. Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're all mad here.

He sat cross-legged on the floor, his powder-blue hospital gown falling over one shoulder. With a heavy sigh, the looming doctor reached under his arms and pulled him up into a chair, but he barely saw the man’s face as he stared through the wall and into the distance. The steel arena perimeter burned with a dull white shimmer from the fluorescent lights high above.

He twisted against the doctor’s hold, but his bony limbs were nothing compared to the strong hands around them, and he gave up when he saw no progress. Something pulled tight around his arms and legs, but he didn’t bother looking, his head leaning onto his shoulder. They usually didn’t strap down anyone in the active test arena, but then again, the scientists always did whatever they wanted and rarely explained anything at all. What did it matter? He felt so hollow that his own thoughts echoed back and forth in the silence.

Fingers snapped next to his head with the sound of rubbing latex. “Can you hear me?”

What did it matter? He clutched the red feather in both hands, running his fingers over its dark fringes, and in a moment it was gone. No matter how hard he wished it back, the dream was gone as soon as it had arrived. The creature they had called out of him the day before had touched his mind, leaving a numb sensation behind, as if it had reached in and pulled out his brain. It had stolen away part of his soul, and now he was half-made.

“Look at me.” A gloved hand took his head by the chin and turned it to face oil-dark eyes. “There. Recite your number.”

...Oh, someone was asking questions. It took several seconds to drag his thoughts out of their haze and command his mouth to speak, and even then, it was a bare mumble. “01A-056.”  _ Where’s 057? _

“Good. You’re coherent enough. You should be happy -- you’re the first to respond to the baseline Block 5 formula.” The tall man reached into a bag of labeled vials, pulled one out, and used a syringe to draw out the greenish fluid. It caught the light like a crystal, shining from within. “This is a variant of that formula.”

His gaze rose, a flicker of life coming back to his thoughts. “Will it bring him back?”

“Likely. Sit still.” The syringe fit neatly into the end of the tube running into his left arm. “This will take about a minute to reach full strength.”

His energy returned in an instant once the plunger moved, and a vicious burn spread out from his chest and through his limbs and into his face. A nurse leaned over him, inspected his face, and untied the upper section of his gown. Sweat dripped down his sides and off his chin, and she pushed a thermometer into his ear.

“37.7 and rising.”

“We saw that coming. Give me the second vial.”

056 glanced to her as she took the now-empty syringe and filled it with a hazy clear fluid. He reached up as the hand moved closer, but the doctor batted his fingers away. The liquid stung as it flowed in, but the pain in his chest grew more distant by the second, and a familiar itching on his back told him the strange presence was growing again. Gentle fingers wrapped around his shoulders, cold breath rushing by his ear. The nurse held a glass lens to his eye.

“He’s responding, Doctor.”

“All right. Let him go, and let’s see what this can do.”

The straps loosened, and he pulled away his arms, then pushed himself out of the chair and stepped out of the leg loops. Gray walls spun around him, the flicker of the observation deck’s glass window passing by again and again, and he wobbled and held out his arms to keep his balance. Yanking his arms out of his sleeves, he let the top of his gown fall behind him and hung his head, panting. As he wiped sweat off his face, he saw a yellow glow shine onto his fingers. Where was it coming from?

“...38.2, Doctor. We have to stop this if it gets past--”

“Let him try.”

“He’s our best result. Don’t endanger him.”

“I won’t.”

Searing heat crawled over his skin and seethed like flowing blood, and pressure grew behind his eyes and threatened to burst through his skull. Pressing his hands to his temples, he clenched his teeth and curled in on himself, then fell to his knees as his legs gave way on their own. The masked eyes peered out from behind his, but as he moved to reach outside himself, the pain was too distracting, and he fell onto his side instead. As his lips drew back into a bare-toothed scream, he felt blood and spit drip down his chin.

“What is it? Get him up!”

Hands pulled him back onto his knees, but no matter how hard he dug his nails into his skin and how much he wished the pain away, the wall was still blocking him.

Cold electrodes pressed to his head. “It’s too much. We have to bring him back down. There’s an anomaly on the EEG that we didn’t see last time.”

“No. He just needs to separate it from himself.”

“That’s not tested in the amount required to--”

“We have to try.”

The color he glimpsed from scrunched eyes was translucent red-orange. With the nurse holding him on his knees, he felt the tube in his arm chill.

Glass shattered in the back of his mind.

Wings burst out from his ripped back, and his pale angel leapt into the air with a wailing cry. The pain rushed away like so much fire doused into ash, and a silver glow filled the room. 

Every nerve hissed with power.  _ This is me now. _ He snapped his blood-streaked teeth, and something crunched between them.

“Put him down!”

_ “No.”  _

He held out his hand, and a tiny white star burned atop his palm. Closing his fingers, he felt its flame surge through him, lighting him from within--

And let go.

Walls melted. Cloth burned. Skin bubbled. Death rained down like moonlight, devouring the chair, the ground, the steel, the glass, the flesh. Distantly, the door burst open in a splash of silver plasma. A ubiquitous voice roared its calm message:

_ “ _ **_Warning. Test arena 2 breached on Floors 2 and 3. Bulkhead doors are closing. Please proceed to your nearest emergency exit. Warning. Test arena 2 breached…”_ **

The arena’s purging process began, vents opening, gas pouring out in hazy billows. With a flick of his gleaming eyes, he blasted them into oblivion, crumpling them into the walls in a misshapen splatter.

_ Who are you? _

Freed from their prisons behind the walls, black and gooey shapes crawled over the wreckage and dragged themselves toward him. Behind them, the rifts between this world and the next belched a green vapor into the room.

_ I can see you across the void between us. _

Red wings spread wide and tilted, reflecting the starlight into a great blast that sent them flying.

_ Listen well. _

The light burned him from the inside out.

_ We are scattered-- _

Alarms wailed.

_ Damaged-- _

Metal feet clicked.

_ Torn apart-- _

Cold blue eyes peered through the smoke.

_ Don’t yield to them. _

_ Don’t let them keep us. _

Spinning barrels rose even with his face.

_ What are they doing? _

Gleamed--

_ Will there be another? _

Flashed--

_ What-- _

_ \--it won’t-- _

_ So-- _

_ Don’twillIbutseesoyouwewillmy _

He shrieked through the cacophony, and the world turned off like a burned-out bulb.

Blood and water.

Ice on his burning skin. Fierce cold in his throat. Someone yelling about fever.

Moros had told him, it wasn’t time yet.

Sleep.

  
  


“Good morning.”

Light through the window. A breeze from the fan on the bedside table ruffled his hair. 

_ You had a strange dream. _

_ I wasn’t in it. _

_ You’ll be here forever. _

_ Yes, yes, I know. _

He pushed himself to sit upright, leaning against his pillow. “Good morning, Doctor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Almighty" element is basically “cosmic element” or “star/plasma element” or something, which is why it has no resistance or weakness parameters. It's the weird one.
> 
> I choose to believe this kid's only spell for a long time was Megido.
> 
> Also, people responded to my note last time -- apparently engaging with readers here gets comments! I much appreciate them, as they're quite encouraging, so if you feel a desire to leave a line or two for me, I will always welcome that.


	11. Broken, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is so little kindness in the world, that isn't beaten out of most as they grow. Those that are cold, might once have loved too deeply. (Follows the events of Broken.)

The doctors laid his limp body on the table, broken bare flesh and ripped cloth. Blood dripped shamelessly from the sides of the table, pooling on the floor, a testament to indifference. Despite it all, Chidori climbed on the chair the nurse slid over for her and put her hands onto the boy’s trembling chest. The robot guardian had missed his vital organs deliberately, as she was programmed, they had told her en route. His arms and legs would need repair, but his center was intact. Focus on the minimum required to stem the bleeding and the worst of the damage. Words thrown out as casually as yesterday’s trash.

Each rib stood out under Chidori’s palm as she pressed down, feeling warmth drain from her cheeks. As she closed her eyes, each wound stood out on her own skin, each gaping hole with its own exit behind, the path of each bullet as clear as the fluorescent lights overhead. They ached in her own limbs, as if the doctors had jabbed her with burning stakes. A bone lay split in two in her forearm. Underneath it all, she burned from within, as if her own core were ready to light aflame at any moment, and a deep revulsion knotted in her stomach.

Most of all, the brain that would normally be shouting in bestial pain, was scattered and shattered, lying in pieces _. _ When she gently reached out to it, she felt her own psyche shiver.  _ Lie still and hold my hand, _ her mind whispered to his, but the roiling sea didn’t obey. He was drowning, pulled under into himself, and if she waded into the waves too far, she would go with him. That sort of harm, she couldn’t bring into herself and relieve. It could be encouraged at most, but in the end, she might have to leave it broken.

Instead, with a trickle of outstretched will, she begged her essence to touch each of his new wounds, to brush them over with new flesh and pinch broken veins back into place like clay. 

That one, a doctor said, and tapped her arm where the offending injury lay. She concentrated on its ragged edges, pulling the muscle back together, and the slow throb in her arm turned sharp and unrelenting. The body underneath her palms shuddered and gasped, a sudden new pain appearing as a needle bit into the crook of one arm. Fresh blood flowed in, the dizzying sense of shock growing fainter. 

The whirling senses shrank, darkened.  _ Don’t go _ , she willed him, pressing more of herself into his ragged form.  _ Stay here with us. Don’t be another sacrifice. Don’t be another hole in our lives. _

Even as she wavered, she felt his heart quicken again, his breath steady. Brushing against his mind again, she swept the pieces a little closer together. It threatened to pull her down, but she steadied herself, simply letting her presence hold it, soothe it, as if she could wrap her arms about it. As she whispered to the broken thoughts, she reached out to smooth his bone together, fragments rebuilding and fusing. Dragging the pieces through mutilated flesh felt like glass shredding her body, but it was just pain, just blood. When her eyes eased open enough to see her work from the outside, Takaya’s wounds had filled enough to stop the outflow, and her own clothes welled up with red streaks and spurts, and the room spun and flickered with lights and ghosts that weren’t quite there, but weren’t quite gone.

Shivering and wobbling, she bent to kneel in the chair, then leaned against its arm and laid her head on the backrest.

“Well done,” a tall man whispered next to her, laying a gloved hand on her shoulder. When she glanced up, her eyes barely pulling away from their empty unfocused stare, she saw long brown hair and warm glass-covered eyes. They weren’t as distant as the others’, and so they were far more dangerous. “You’ve saved his life, you know.”

They only cared because Takaya was a “success,” like her. Chidori didn’t have the energy to shrug, but her closed eyes surely conveyed the same idea. They were so afraid of damaging their golden goose that they only wanted her to lay an egg at the right time, now.

“He’s still in danger,” she mumbled. “He’s burning to death from the inside.” Glancing at the pale, sweat-drenched skin, she raised a weak hand to her chest in memory.

“We’re managing his body temperature now that he’s more stable.” He motioned to the still-frantic team as they whisked away the blood-drenched body. “They’ll cool him down enough to make it through.”

“The bullet wounds will leave scars.”

A broad hand rested on her back. “That’s okay.”

Glancing down at her gown, she sighed at the wet scarlet splotches. Really, they should just get her red clothes now. It was silly to keep washing these and replacing them with something unstained. What else was she for, than bleeding for the others?

“Please, come lie down. I’ll help you.” He offered an arm for her to hold onto, but when she silently refused, he lifted her up anyway and held her under the back and legs as he carried her away. All the asking was just a formality, anyway, wasn’t it? Chidori sighed quietly and smoothed down the feeling of foreign wounds aching and burning, until all that remained was the quiet reminder from her body that she was hurt, perhaps she would care to do something about the matter? No more than a polite request, compared to the child’s desperate crying from before.

“You’ll change the world, someday,” the scientist murmured, laying her in a familiar hospital bed. “Healing power like this has never been seen before, and may never be again.”

What a silver tongue. She heaved a sigh and stared at the far wall of the infirmary. Clothes became white again, skin clung to sensors and needles, but her unfocused eyes watched the horizon until finally the door closed and left nothing but silence.

It opened again late at night, and a short silhouette stood out against the hallway lights. Chidori opened her eyes just enough to see the edges come into focus.

“Are you awake?”

She lifted a few fingers and set them back down in an abbreviated wave. The figure crept closer, holding a bundle in its arms. Pushing the door shut behind, it crept further into the infirmary and approached her bed. From the wide glasses and ruffled hair, it looked like Jin, the boy who followed Takaya about and didn’t understand drawing. Sometimes she tried to teach him, but he was a year younger than her and didn’t really get the point of it anyway. As clever as he could be, he was fearful and quiet, and to get him to approach the bedside, she held out a hand as if inviting a stray cat.

“Hello, there.” She offered a small smile.

Mustering a sudden burst of confidence, Jin pushed the crumpled shirt onto the bed. When it fell open, out rolled a pile of strawberries.

“You saved my friend. Thanks.”

Chidori smiled despite herself. Going into the kitchen was forbidden, but in practice, the scientists had more to do than slap their subjects on the wrists for minor mischief. She nibbled the end of a berry and relaxed at the sugary bloom on her tongue. Gathering his impromptu sack, the boy curled in on himself again and began his retreat to the door.

“Wait,” she whispered, holding out a strawberry as if to lure him closer. “Come up here with me?”

“O-okay.” He retraced his past few steps and clambered up onto the side of the hospital bed, keeping his legs tucked close to his chest.

“Is he doing well?”

Jin’s shoulders slumped. “He’s alive, but...they won’t let me see him.”

“He’ll be all right.” She tried to keep her smile, but it fell out of reach.

“Because they like him, right?”

Their solemn eyes met, and she couldn’t muster a lie. That was just it -- they liked him. He had good results in their testing, and so they couldn’t let him die like the others whose lives were only recorded by number and whose names would be lost if she didn’t remember them.

Ichirou, 014, ten years old. His brother sold him for drug money, and he was afraid of adult men. The formulas themselves were too much for his fragile, chemical-addled body, and he gave out during the first round. They took samples and wrapped him in a sheet.

Masami, 011, only six years old. She didn’t remember the parents who gave her up and went everywhere with a flower-printed blanket. She died in the second round of testing, when something from within her body ripped her apart. They carried her twisted form out in a biohazard bag. After that, they changed the Block One formula.

Shizuko, 040, thirteen years old, one of the oldest. She was held captive in a tiny brothel a few miles outside Iwatodai, until they sold her off to the lab because she got her first period. The doctors found her dead one morning, suddenly, with no warning. Her body was hollowed of organs and bloodless when autopsied.

And now, barely averted, Takaya, 056, eleven years old. He was rounded up as part of a collection of some street orphans hiding in a shack by the harbor. A Kirijo defense android put him down after he destroyed Test Arena 2 with an unknown force. He emerged from the healing with a dire fever and a shattered mind. But, to their only pleasure, he had what they called a Persona, and so they would all but destroy her to keep him alive.

There were the others who had been in dire condition but salvageable: Izumi, Yuji, Kimiko, Hikari, Chiyo, Seiji, Nobuyuki, Yasushi...she couldn’t bring herself to recall them all. Their screaming bodies wrote themselves into her flesh, down into her bones, and no matter how well the doctors dressed her and no matter what sweet words they said, all that pain still ached eternal between the fibers of her body. This had been the closest call to survive yet. How many could she handle before it was too much?

“I’m sorry.” Jin pushed a strawberry toward her, interrupting her mournful thoughts. “You look sad, and I didn’t mean it.”

“You didn’t do anything.” She gently laid a hand on top of his, and though he shuddered, he didn’t pull away. With most, he would have fled immediately -- it had taken her weeks to convince him just to let her touch him after the first experiments.  _ Jin. Nine years old. Sold to Kirijo by his mother.  _ She didn’t want to write the rest of his tiny epitaph in her mind just yet. His body felt healthy, though a chill seeped into her skin and told her that wouldn’t last forever.

“I don’t think they’re ever going to let us out.” He trembled as he held onto her fingers. Fear aside, it still seemed to comfort him, and the warmth calmed her as well. “I think they don’t care if we die.”

“Yes.”  _ You’ve figured it out, too, now? _ She sighed and encouraged him to scoot closer. “They only want me to heal people who show results, unless it’s no trouble.”

“What do we do?”

“I don’t know.” The admission took all her mustered energy, and she lay back on the pillows. His hand moved with her, and she saw something scribbled on the back of it in fat marker. “What is that?”

Now he did yank his arm away, burying the hand under his clothes. “They wrote my number on me.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t like saying it, but they won’t let us use our names, so when I did it anyway, they wrote it on me. They said I had to remember.”

“I don’t say my number…”

For the barest instant, a dark rage scrawled itself across his face. “You heal people. So it’s okay.”

The words felt like a slap. She opened her mouth to tell him to leave, but then her eyes moved to the hidden hand again, and she managed a reluctant nod. “I...yes. They won’t hurt me, because they need me, so I get away with things they won’t let you do.”

“I want a name.”

“You have a name, Jin.” Holding out her hand again, she reached for the one without the number. When he let her lift it into her palm, she smiled and squeezed it tight. “You still know mine, don’t you?”

“Chidori.”

“Yoshino Chidori. Don’t forget my name. Don’t forget yours, or his, either.”

“Yoshino Chidori,” he repeated, tears trickling down his cheeks. “Shirato Jin. Sakaki Takaya.”

“They don’t call me anything but Zero-Five-Eight either. They just...look the other way when I won’t use it.” She glanced away, then back up to him, her brows pulling together. “Would you...help me stay warm? I lost blood, and I’m cold.”

“What can I do?”

“Would you lie here next to me?” She pulled back the blankets.

Though his eyes grew wide and white with fear, he steeled himself and jerked his head in a brief nod. Clambering over to her, he threw himself onto the mattress and curled up, burying his face in his arms. She pulled the covers over him, staying just an inch or two away, giving him what space she could.

“That’s fine,” she said with a quiet sigh. “I don’t want to scare you. I just need to be warmer.”

“Why don’t you ask them for another blanket?”

“I…”

He peeked out from behind his self-made wall and watched her with wary curiosity.

“You don’t like being touched. I...I get sad, and lonely, if I don’t have someone to hold onto.”

“Okay.” Without warning, he stretched out his arms and held onto her as best his shaking self could, awkwardly clinging to her ribs. “Is that better?”

“You don’t have to do that,” she mumbled, though she embraced him in return and found herself unable to let go. It was too real, too warm, too human...unlike anything else in this cold, sterile hell. The doctors shook her off their hands when she held on, save for when they carried her from place to place, and even then it felt more like hauling a bag than carrying a girl.

“You saved my friend,” he said again. “Thanks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll admit to never having felt one way or the other about Chidori, but the idea caught me that maybe, with her healing powers, she might have been forced to be "mother and medic" for the others. Having her be the mature, quietly suffering person who is far stronger in mind than in body, really stuck with me. 
> 
> Jin's aversion to touch is mentioned in earlier chapters, and I figure all this is where it began. And maybe Chidori, not just Takaya, was someone whose mere presence taught him to be strong.


	12. Noir and Rez

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's always a bigger fish in your pond. (Takes place a day after Jin wakes up in the hospital.)

_ Are you the Resurrectionist? _ the message said, and he could feel the shaking in the letters as they paused, then appeared; paused, then appeared. Live chat was the next best thing to spoken word, and he was better at reading text than reading faces anyway. Shuffling so that he sat up higher in his bed, he adjusted the laptop and let out a deep breath as the heavy case weighed on his legs. At least Kirijo had salvaged it from the memorial instead of leaving it there behind some trees.

_ Yeah, who’s asking? _ he replied, beginning his usual internet delving in another window. If only he had his second monitor...and third, really. Having to flick things around a single screen and squint was a pain. It wouldn’t take too long to identify where this dialogue was coming from via shady methods, but far too many people weren’t secure online anyway. Most would just tell you things if prodded. Wetware was always the weakest part of any system.

_ Noir, _ was the response. At least it was a username. Nothing that rang a bell.

_ What do you want?  _ Hm, out of Tokyo, some high speed corporate network...

_ A friend online showed me one of your posts.  _

Ah, there it was. Not hard to find...well! That was  _ something _ , all right. It took several deep reads of the profile for the intensity of the user’s identity to sink in, and when it did, he shook his head in mute disbelief.  _ You found me, so speak up. _

Siphoning off some information from Noir’s system indicated that the user profile currently logged in was listed as Okumura Haru, and anywhere on the entire Internet could tell him that she was the heir to Okumura Foods. What did a fast food mogul want with darknet riffraff?

_ People say you can bring someone back to life. _

He chuckled and rolled his eyes. Why did everyone lead with that line? He needed a virtual business card or something. But really, was someone like this the kind to grasp at conspiracy theories? _ That’s what the name means. Anyone can get you data and lost stuff. I can get you the real deal. Who do you want? _

_ This must be a difficult process. _

So much beating around the bush. Fumbling an apple off the bedside table, he gnawed a hole in the skin and took a long breath of its fragrance, relishing the sweet juice. Fruit didn’t last long, and the boxes that stores would throw out nowadays went to either resellers or delivery services, so he almost never got any for himself. Here, the hospital even gave him as much as he asked for, turning a rare treat into a daily occurrence. Well, he had plenty of time to enjoy today’s sweets while waiting for Noir to get to the point. Silence made people talk.

_ It must be expensive, then, right? _

What did a rich chick like her care about cost?  _ It’s negotiable. I’m sure an Okumura can handle it. _ Maybe that would scare her into bending a little.

The pause before her response told him all he needed. _ How did you know? _

_ I’m good at this. You don’t keep up work around these parts by sucking at what you do. _

A long while of silence. They wouldn’t be able to track him back easily, especially given what Noir’s level of computer savviness seemed to be. Dropping some “I can outplay you trivially” would be fine.

_ I don’t have much money I can put toward something like this. Sorry. My funds are tied up in my company, and I can’t do much with it without alerting people. I know it sounds like a lie. _

Ugh, how naive could she be? He picked the apple seeds out of the core and nipped at the rest. You didn’t just  _ tell _ someone sketchy on the internet the  _ truth. _ But, innocents were easy to work with, so maybe he should just consider himself lucky. 

_ I take a lot of currencies. I’m sure you have something I want.  _ In retrospect, that sounded a bit skeevy, but well, he  _ was _ skeevy. Just...not like that. Hopefully it wouldn’t be taken poorly, because this customer had an awful lot of potential. Money would be great, but information or some kind of concrete favors could be just as good in the right circumstances.

_ Do you have anyone you hate, or someone who hurt you? _

His non-brows twitched. What kind of a question was that? But hey, he was the one saying he could bring people back from the dead, which was bound to attract loonies. Or,  _ eccentrics. _ That’s what rich loonies were called.

_ Sure. Why? _

_ I can perform a service in return. _

Haru Fucking Okumura was willing to call in a  _ hit _ on someone? What in the absolute  _ hell? _ He barked a laugh and managed to cover his face before he sprayed apple spit on the monitor.

_ Back up, little lady.  _ With an amused grin, he leaned toward the screen, cracking his knuckles.  _ I’m not looking for a killing. _ He could do his own damn killing, thank you very much, but that was the most interesting offer he had seen all month -- no, ever. Some little rich girl with a gun, ha. Or maybe she was the knife type.

_ Oh! Not like that! _

Ahh. Well, that was a disappointment!  _ Then like what? _

_ Well...have you heard of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts? _

He scratched his head and did some quick searching. Right, those guys -- the ones who claimed to be able to bend people’s minds to their will, at least sort of. To make evildoers feel guilty about their actions and confess their crimes. Some kind of sentai-esque superhero thing. Probably blackmailers and other sorts like himself.

_ Yeah, those guys in the news.  _ With a yawn, he closed the articles.

_ I have contacts with some of them. If you have someone you need changed, I can trade a service for a service. _

He started to dismiss the idea, then paused with his fingers on the keys. Changed. Changed how? Was it just guilt that they could make happen? If not…

_ So what can the Thieves do? _

_ They go after really bad people and make them regret their crimes. You saw the Kaneshiro case, probably? _

_ Yeah, the yakuza guy. Anything else? I don’t care about playing hero.  _ He tossed the apple stem and seeds into the trash can near the door.

_ What they really do is change the dominant thing in someone’s heart, I think. If you’re greedy, you’ll be more charitable. If you’re cruel, you’ll be more kind. If you’re scared, they can help you be less afraid. _

This sounded suspiciously Dark Hour, which was unnerving because Iwatodai suddenly was not the only place that the other side had shown up. But, if so, therein was great potential. Whatever trait was most egregious, they would go hammer down into place. He could easily think of a target for that…

_ Yeah. I like this plan. I think we can work out some details. You first -- who’s the guy? _

_ My father. _

Kunikazu Okumura, a search said in quick and easy detail, had died quite recently from unknown causes during a press conference. The autopsy was surprisingly similar to other incidents around Tokyo, where a scattershot of people suffered psychotic breaks and subsequently died from what appeared to be a simple...lack of function. The brain panicked, lost control of its own reality, had no idea how to reconnect to its body properly, and shut down soon after. Sometimes there was bleeding in the mucous membranes, especially the nose, but that was deemed not a cause of death but rather an effect of the circulatory system failing catastrophically. Given how high-status the late Okumura was, there would be plenty of information on him, and plenty of pictures to work with for the body. 

And, not least of all...look who showed up on the articles.  _ Okumura, your Phantom Thieves are being called hitmen. _

_ They’re not! They didn’t kill him! _

Hm, a sudden response. She was invested in this.  _ I have no beef with them. Just letting you know. _

_ Yeah. The media doesn’t like them. _

Big deal; the media didn’t like anyone.

But...there was a serious problem attached to this: did Tokyo actually have a Dark Hour to access? Could the human psyche even be called up there? Was that what the Phantom Thieves were doing? If not, how was he supposed to even do this? He would have to make a trip out there to even see if this was viable, which added to the cost of all this even more. The last guy he had been paid to bring back, he had won the lottery on: ex-Iwatodai resident. That meant the local Dark Hour had his information. But someone completely from Tokyo, born and bred...that wasn’t going to be easy. Still, he had a couple of ideas...

_ All right. We’ll start by trading deposits. Also I want a bit of Bitcoin to get me to Tokyo. _

He forwarded her the appropriate instructions -- honestly, Okumura probably didn’t know how Bitcoin even worked. Or maybe she was playing him? No, she really probably was just some lost sheltered girl.

_ I’ll do that. _

Now, to set up the “partial payments.”  _ All right. When I’m ready to head out for Tokyo, I’ll let you know what I’m planning and a general time scale. By then, I want your Phantom Thieves’ agreement to do their magic for me. We’ll swap details then. _

_ Thank you, Resurrectionist-san. _

_ Rez for short, Noir. None of this honorific shit.  _

_ Thanks, Rez. _

Noir disconnected. Folding his arms behind his head, Jin sighed quietly and mulled over his options. He had to finish Takeru by the time he went to Tokyo, or the body might not hold together while he was gone indefinitely. But, he could get a whole lot out of this, especially from a rich girl reaching for the moon just to get her dad back. Cute. Well, it was her lucky day, finding a pie in the sky plan that would actually yield results. With that set up--

**_hey, Jin!_ **

What. He scratched his head and pushed his bangs out of his face and checked who had popped up. No name he recognized, and some horrendously obscured connection. Terrific. Maybe someone he had cracked into long ago?

_ Who the hell are you? _

**_let’s say...i’m a guardian and i see what you did there._ ** Accompanied, of course, by an appropriate meme. Jin propped his arm on the bed’s rail and leaned his head on his hand.

_ So you’re a spy. _

**_yeah sure, sometimes, all the time. so, you bring people back from the dead, huh? how’s that work out for you?_ **

Annoying little shit. _ You read my conversation, go look at your logs. _

**_just remember Noir has pals on the internet, and we don’t like people causing her problems._ **

_ You threatening me?  _ Where the fuck was this coming from? He kept chasing the connection in circles. Security should have seen this “guardian” break in; his digital eyes weren’t easy to get around.

**_i mean if you want to call it that sure. i prefer ‘giving a warning.’ you got a lot of sketchy records, you know._ **

_ Get to the fucking point before I shut down.  _ This was useless. Wherever the user was, Jin couldn’t get to them. No point in talking.

**_no fun. well, point is, be nice._ **

_ I  _ am _ nice. _

**_lol sure you are, you’re an assassin_ **

Of course they found the revenge site, not that it mattered. _ Big fucking deal. And you’re a hacker. _

**_oh well you’re that too._ **

_ I get it, you’re protecting Noir, in case I decide to flush her bank account or fuck up her company data. I didn’t get where I am being a moron. I don’t backstab my allies. _

**_yeah that’s a pretty solid policy. as long as you play nice, i will too._ **

_ Later, guard dog. Don’t bark yourself to death. _

**_pleasure talking to you,_ **

**_Moros._ **

They were gone before Jin could make some very inappropriately worded demands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But Mizar, why are these chapters so damn short now? Because they're mostly dialogue and snips of action. I'll sit down and make one longer eventually, I swear. They go until they run out of steam.


	13. Charismatics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "All I have learned in all of my years, is that reality is what one chooses to believe."

He sat on a jet-colored outcrop, watching blood trickle down the old brick wall, nauseating lime-colored moonlight casting it dark and muddy. The stripes on his suit blended in with the dark Shadow architecture jutting here and there out of the city, though were his disguise real cloth, he would never get the blood and goo out of it in a thousand washes. Iwatodai itself got _everywhere,_ bleeding onto skin and clothes the way the Metaverse bled into reality in this godforsaken city. It really was as depressing as the internet made it seem these days.

A silhouette dropped to the ground in a flutter of wispy gray cloth, no rustle or footsteps preceding it. Stealthy. He acknowledged the stunt with a brief raise of his chin.

“Good evening,” he said as he stood, letting one hand fall conveniently near his pistol. The toy ray gun from Tokyo didn’t work as well here in this Metaverse -- maybe it wasn’t real enough for a place where the human world and Shadow world were so close. His costume still appeared, though, so he had at least a disguise.

The air around his contact crackled and split, the glass of reality breaking and melding in turn. Whatever that trick was, he wasn’t sure it was just for show, so he ran through his checklist of emergency “real world” equipment one more time. A spring-knife on his leg. A taser in a side pocket -- he hadn’t expected it to work, as a piece of technology, but turns out it did lightning damage, so that was something. Several poison jabs on the backs of his gloves. Those should at least stall an enemy long enough to escape, and in the Iwatodai Metaverse, possibly do real damage.

“Crow,” the falls of gray cloth murmured. Metaverse disguises were frustrating, especially to a detective; they obscured not just in body, but in mind. He should have been able to see under a simple ragged cloak and cowl, but the Metaverse hazed over his mind so long as he didn’t know the wearer’s identity for sure. Nothing stood beneath the fluttering rags but a ambiguous body, of an ambiguous height, with an ambiguous voice. All he could get were words, tone, and body language. Right now, none of those said _fear._

Nevertheless, he nodded. “Reaper.” All the disguise needed was a scythe, and an English code-word worked fine for a person who had refused to identify themselves from the start. “It’s good to see you made it here in time.”

The cowl trembled in what might have been laughter, its dangling gossamer cloth serving as a translucent mask down to the wearer’s nose. No matter what the motions Reaper made, its fluttering somehow obscured the eyes. Nevertheless, their head tilted this way and that, just enough for Crow to notice, just enough to hint that they were paying attention to something else while speaking.

“I managed,” they said with a crooked smile. “Now, what does the black Crow want?”

 _Kuro, kurou._ He offered a joyless chuckle at the pun. “The black Crow wants,” he swallowed bile with his pride, “an ally. A paid ally. You’ll do.”

“Don’t despair, bird. I am nothing if not straightforward. If you buy, I will provide.” An honest tone, of course, but with a twinge of desperation. Crow believed them.

“We need to get you to Tokyo.”

“Oh?” A faint confusion, tempered with confidence. “I thought you wanted help with Kirijo personnel. Is that not why you came all this way to meet me?” Reaper hopped up onto a gnarled railing and sat limply there like a Halloween skeleton. Bored? Posturing calmness? Or just distraction?

“I do. They’re a splinter group in Tokyo.”

“That might pose a _problem,_ yes?” Their tone ticked upward, a playful, inquisitive sound, and they tilted their head as if asking simply for exercise.

“If you’re incarcerated, I can help with that. Consider it another deal we can make.” Crow plunged ahead, ignoring his own impulse to demand seriousness here. Iwatodai’s police department was incompetent at best. Maybe one or two good officers, the rest resigned to the city’s fate of drowning in low-level crime and disrepair. They fished bodies out of the harbor once in a while, or cleaned up a scene, but mostly they recorded the situation and moved on. It wouldn’t take much to defeat their system.

“The people here are aware of my,” they paused to think, cracked-glass webs spreading out from their head and back briefly as if their brain were radiating into the void, “situation, as it were.”

“Of course; if you weren’t also locked up in the Metaverse somehow, you would have escaped already.” Crow sauntered a few steps to the side to avoid a stray split.

Reaper turned their head, staring down the long bloody streets. “Oh, that has already been dealt with.”

Crow stopped with his mouth open, briefly. “What?” _Futaba, you already went through with this? How? Why?_ “Excuse me?”

“Yes, yes, I was discharged yesterday. You’re looking at the _real_ me, for what that might be worth to you.” The shrouded eyes all but gleamed with amusement from the rest of Reaper’s face. “Ah, don’t be so downtrodden. I keep my agreements. As such, I only have one constraint to present to you before we leave Iwatodai. Well, two.”

 _They’re just pulling my chain now._ This was why Crow didn’t bother with allies. “Fine. What?”

Two gloved fingers rose. “First, my agreement is such that there is a single person I cannot take actions to deliberately harm.”

 _Damnit. She blocked me from using them against Ren._ “I know already who you’re going to tell me.”

“I am unsurprised. Your friend says you have a history of bad blood.”

 _Futaba, stop_ telling _people things._ Crow groaned under his breath and made a silent _go on_ motion. “Yes, you aren’t to harm Amamiya Ren. Second?”

“As long as we understand each other, then. Second,” they repeated with a dramatic flair, “I have no means of transit, nor any money.”

“Oh, that’s simple.” With a shrug, he sat back on his earlier perch. “I’ll meet with you--”

“No.”

Sharp. He rocked back as if slapped. “What?”

“No, I will not see you in person. We will only meet here, where we are on even footing.”

“You’re worried I’ll harm you.” _Also, we’re not even. I presume you aren’t a wild-card._

“I am concerned with a great many things, only one of which is you. I will procure resources.”

 _Meaning you’ll steal money until you can pay your way._ He shrugged and waved away the topic. “Well, as long as you’re in Tokyo soon. When can you be there? You’ll also need a smartphone, though it doesn’t matter if it does more than turn on.”

“Hm...give me a week.”

“Done. Seven days from now, I want you to have a burner phone and a smartphone and be within Tokyo city limits. Call this number with your burner.” He held out a piece of paper, and Reaper plucked it from his fingers. “We’ll see if we can get back into the Metaverse there.”

“So, what is your price for my release?”

He scoffed quietly. Futaba had shot way ahead of him and given Reaper Crow’s dangling incentive already. This offer was certainly just a show of good faith a way to say that they could have taken advantage of Crow but decided not to. _Certainly not out of the goodness of their heart._

“I’m chasing a Kirijo team in Tokyo, and I want your resources, Metaverse ability, and loyalty. For your release, I want your full obedience in our first mission.”

“As you say,” Reaper sang in mocking response. “Which is?”

“To locate their center of operations by tracing their presence in the Metaverse.”

“A tall order. You know how the Metaverse works enough to sniff out a person?”

 _No, but I have some ideas._ “Maybe. I have some leads on individuals, and we’ll scope each of them out and see if we can find data on the other side. I’ll explain more when we’re on the phone in Tokyo.”

Reaper patted their clothes demonstrably. “I will need weapons and equipment.”

“That’s easy. Do you have a preference?”

“For defense, something lightweight and emphasizing agility. For offense, I prefer guns, if you have a way to obtain one.”

 _So now we’re narrowed down to Metaverse users who aren’t physical powerhouses and who use ranged weapons. Hm._ With a brief laugh, Crow pulled out his pistol, making a show of pointing it at the ground and keeping his finger off the trigger to demonstrate his unwillingness to shoot. “Something like this is easy to get.”

“Can you find anything...larger?” Dismay dripped from their words. “Shadows require stopping power. As do humans.”

Well, _that_ was a telltale remark. Calculated, too. “Hm. Possibly. The police in Tokyo have something of an under the table situation with the yakuza. I’m sure I can siphon off a weapon for you. Keep in mind, though, that Tokyo actually cares if you carry a gun, unlike Iwatodai.”

“I know. Trust me...I can fly low.”

“And your accommodations?”

“I don’t need any.”

Hm. A person used to living on the streets, clearly. Well, without a base of operations, it would be harder for anyone in pursuit to find them and get information out of them, as long as they kept their head down.

“Well, I believe that settles it until we meet again. Though, I do have one more question.” He leaned toward the gray-clothed stranger and peered through the red-glassed slits in his mask. “If this is the ‘real you,’ as you say, what might I have seen before your release?”

The cracks spread wider, fanning out to either side like great broken wings. “Ah, the matter of that. Well...it is a difficult question to answer.”

Crow’s hackles rose at the display. “We’re almost done for the night, and I know you want time to put distance between us. So, answer, and I’ll leave you to your preparations.”

Reaper gathered their soft-shoed feet beneath them, crouched on the railing. “All I have learned in all of my years, is that reality is what one chooses to believe.”

  
  


When Akechi returned to his hotel, the Metaverse vanished in an understated flicker, one moment there, the next, gone like a frame passing by in a movie. Stoop-squatting wanderers replaced coffins on the entryway stairs; streetlights glowed in sodium-yellow floods; a stray cat skittered across the empty street. Moving in and out of the Metaverse in Tokyo was a slippery, sliding sensation, as if he were falling down a muddy hill, but Iwatodai was simply a jump-cut to the surreal.

Well, _that_ had been a sparring match. Reaper didn’t take much seriously, it seemed, and Akechi wasn’t about to drag them around by the nose. Either they were useful, or he would find a way to cut them off. Futaba had found some reason to trust them at least a little, which mystified him; he would have to talk to her about that. She clearly still thought he was a threat if she was willing to make a deal just to keep Ren safe from him; a pity, but he would work with it. After all, Ren was a long-term project. Getting rid of Shido’s little research team was shorter-term and far more important right now. As the last bastion of Metaverse knowledge he could find, if he took them down, then _he_ would be the one running the show on the other side.

Hopefully he wouldn’t have to turn about and take down Reaper. Letting one’s assistant get too comfortable, well, ended one up like Shido. Futaba was too capable to bother trying to fight in reality, but he could keep his new pet on a tight leash. Pulling out his second phone, he opened a secure text app to Futaba.

_Hi there. You got ahead of me._

_sorry! kinda had to deal with some prep work, you know the drill._

_You’re still worried about Ren._

_well you did try to kill him so you know, makes sense_

_Right. You’re lucky our contact here didn’t just walk out and blow us off._

_he seems like the type to keep his word and all that_

_How would you know?_

_you wouldn’t have picked him if he was THAT flaky._

_Yes, but you shouldn’t act as if my judgments are perfect._

_wow the great Akechi admitting he’s not perfect? ;)_

_Of course I’m not. So, do you have that profile yet?_

_well no not really. info’s pretty locked down. they must have anything on him air-gapped. that at least says security is high and so Reaper’s pretty important to whoever put him in there_

_In where, Futaba?_

_iwatodai general psychiatric ward_

_So I was right._

_yeah the people here must think Reaper’s crazy for having a persona_

_I don’t think so._ Akechi paused before typing the rest of his message, brow furrowing in concentration. _I think that’s an easy place to keep someone. It’s harder to jail a person long-term but easy enough to get them committed._

_so you think this is kind of...easy jail?_

_Yes. I think Reaper is dangerous, and someone wanted them put away._

_man, i hate it when there’s no info. i can find anything if it’s out there but you can’t get blood from a stone and all that._

_I understand. Keep looking. I like to know who I’m working with._

_you got it boss ;)_

_I’ll talk to you later. Have a good night, and get some sleep._

_don’t worry i’ll tell your boyfriend you love him for you :P_

_You do that and I’ll make sure you’re arrested for communications fraud for that Futaba Cannon mess._

_whoops look at the time gotta go ;)_

Akechi tucked the phone in his pocket. She better not have told Ren, or anyone else, that he was still alive. That was part of the deal -- he helped her get research, she didn’t breathe a word of his existence to anyone else. Cognitive psience wasn’t exactly easy to find information about, so digging into these ex-Kirijo scientists had more than one advantage. Still, she was a little too unpredictable, and if she thought she could get away with it, she would probably try to “reconcile” him with the other Thieves.

Other. No, just the Thieves. He had never been one of them, never intended to, never wanted to be. He had a different path, and no matter what drivel they tried to spew at him in his “last moments,” being a companion to them wasn’t in the cards. They were too naive and judgmental all at once for the likes of him, and besides, he wouldn’t be in any team that wouldn’t have him as leader. Ren wasn’t about to step down for him, and even if he did, Makoto and Morgana would throw a fit. It wasn’t even worth trying. He had bigger fish to fry.

Still, did Ren even think about him now that he was dead? The boy had put so much effort into making “friends” with Akechi that it almost seemed like he cared. Charming. Still, fun though playing with an enemy was, Akechi was glad to see him go away, if only so he would _stop winning_.

 _My turn to win._ He flopped face-first onto the bed and sighed into the pillow. _I hope._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one who knows me should be surprised at any of this chapter. Also, it took every ounce of my being not to name it "Don't Fear the Reaper." You're welcome.


	14. Ergo Legacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And Nyx (Night) bare hateful Moros (Doom) and black Ker (Violent Death) and Thanatos (Death), and she bare Hypnos (Sleep) and the tribe of Oneiroi (Dreams). ...Also she bare the Moirai (Fates) and the ruthless avenging Keres (Death-Fates) ... Also deadly Nyx bare Nemesis (Revenge) to afflict mortal men. — Hesiod, Theogony 211, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White
> 
> "The black Dooms gnashing their white teeth, grim-eyed, fierce, bloody, terrifying fought over the men who were dying for they were all longing to drink dark blood. As soon as they caught a man who had fallen or one newly wounded, one of them clasped her great claws around him and his soul went down to Hades, to chilly Tartarus. And when they had satisfied their hearts with human blood, they would throw that one behind them and rush back again into the battle and the tumult."  
> \- Shield of Heracles (248-57)

The nurse offered her clipboard. “Here is the complete list of injuries. I would recommend that he stay here for a few more days so that the surgical incisions have time to heal more thoroughly. Additionally, if you’re willing, I would like to recommend at the very least therapy, if not longer-term psychiatric intervention.”

Mitsuru sighed and shook her head. “He won’t accept, I’m sure, but what inspired this?”

“A fear of physical contact, lack of any social support network by choice, an angry and frightened demeanor toward the staff, possible signs of post-traumatic stress, disregard for his own well-being, frequent nightmares...in general, he seems to be a deeply discontented person, and that isn’t just because of his wounds.”

“Unless he commits a crime and is ordered to by a judge, or he is a demonstrable danger to himself in a way anyone will understand, there is no way to force him to accept any kind of treatment above-board.” Mitsuru glanced down the list and subdued a wince at just how long it was. Most of his injuries were minor, but altogether not much of him had been spared. All of it together reminded her of the beatings SEES had taken in the most difficult Shadow battles. While most of the damage faded when the Dark Hour ended, the team frequently carried at least one or two of their members home asleep from sheer fatigue, and Aigis had eventually ended up on permanent Arisato duty, because he flat refused not to lead from the front.

Was it worth trying to detain Jin indefinitely? He was a danger to himself and others. If she wanted him sent to prison, she could try to dig up his Revenge Request site activity, but Jin was the sort of predator that prowled in darkness, hiding his own footprints; she probably wouldn’t get much evidence against him. The cult, while cruel, was not illegal. Having him committed quietly under the table wouldn’t be terribly difficult, what with Kirijo having a major stake in the hospital. Still, with his injuries, he had to stay here for now. Perhaps he would be willing to have a conversation now that he had to sit still.

Mitsuru shut the door quietly behind her, and Jin managed a tired frown as she approached. Her sharp face and stiff way of walking gave her the look of a draconian taskmaster, though, oddly, her eyes seemed to smile at him. Something about the curve of the lids around the piercing stare.

“I’m glad you’re alive.” She offered a tense bow, as if unused to the gesture. “We hoped we had gotten you here in time.”

With a muted sigh, he rolled his head to the side and peered at her through half-open eyes. “Here to say I owe you my life?”

She ignored that, sitting in the nurse’s chair next to him and pushing long hair out of her face. “How are you feeling without,” she gestured to the orange bag, “him?”

Him. _Empty,_ he wanted to say. _I hate him, and I miss him. A death grip on your neck starts to feel comfortable if it’s all you have._ Tears welled in his eyes, but he held them from falling until they dripped into his throat, and he swallowed them back like a bitter curse.

“Calm.” He leaned back into the pillow, staring up at the ceiling. That nagging sense that he was incomplete still lingered in his mind. “Dreamless. For once. But it’s fucking cold, and...yeah.” _And I’m alone._

“Did you run out of your drugs? Is that why all _that_ happened?” 

As sharp as her voice was, her expression softened, and it felt like she had pried under his lie and seen the fear and despair beneath. _Don’t look at me._ He glanced away, tightening his grip on the blankets. 

“No. They...stopped working, just like that.” _He -- I? -- decided that enough was enough, I guess._

“That’s not good news,” she muttered, watching the monitors, their beeping spikes reflected on her eyes. “This drug metabolizes quickly, so unless we put you on on a medicine pump, you’re not going to be able to use it on the move.”

“Heh. So, when does this kill me?”

Her stiff smile turned to one of relief. “It doesn’t. That was the tradeoff for having it be so transient.”

He looked down at his arm, with the transparent orange-filled tube trailing under a strip of tape. “What was the point of saving me, just to keep me tethered to this thing?”

Mitsuru pinched the bridge of her nose and took a long, slow breath. “You’re such an ungrateful man. Do you place no value on your life even now? You’ve preserved it for seven years beyond what any of us thought possible, and on top of that, we’ve done nothing but spare you. We could have ended it in Tartarus. We could have left you behind in the park. We _didn’t._ ”

“I don’t grovel.” He clenched a weak fist, but it fell open just after, and all the energy he had gathered to snap back at her drained away. “But...fine. Sure. Thanks, I guess.”

Lowering her hands into her lap, Mitsuru watched him for a long few seconds that felt to him like several minutes. “I hoped you would be willing to have a conversation.”

“The kind you had with Chidori?” He spat the words without thinking.

“No. Not that.” For once, she seemed regretful, pressing a hand to the bridge of her nose and muffling a sigh. “I admit that while I still would have acted that way with the information I had, in the end, it accomplished little to be so demanding of someone in such a delicate position.”

Why wasn’t she angry about this? In a moment’s silent epiphany, he realized that on some level, he had hoped the biting responses would needle her into leaving in a huff. _Stop being so fucking nice. I know we hurt you. I know you’re pissed off._ “Fine, what bullshit do you want?”

“I would like you to communicate with us, if you’re willing.” Her doll-like red lips curved into a smile he wanted so badly to be fake. “That’s it. As I said in the park, what my family’s scientists did to you was beyond unethical, and while we had to defend ourselves to stay alive, I regret that we couldn’t work together as people stranded in the Dark Hour with each other. It’s a shame we were at odds with each other.”

He wanted to swing himself out of bed and yell at her, maybe grab her by the collar, but the straps on his wrists and needles in his arms reminded him that it was all impossible, and besides, he just wanted to sink back into the pillows and sleep. _I’m never going to get enough rest._ Instead of the dramatic gesture, he offered only a venomous glare.

“Y’never fuckin’ valued your power.”

Her delicate brows pulled together. “What?”

Clenching a fist, he thumped the rail weakly. “You were always so damned _important._ Y’ meant something to the world with or without fucking _superpowers._ ” He sat up despite his ribs’ burning protest and turned to face her fully. “You bastards were the lowest of the low. Y’ _bought_ people from their parents. You picked up kids off the street. You played with people who y’knew nobody would miss. And now what’re we? Still useless. Still overlooked. When all those damn chickens came home to roost, when we came back to fuck you up for throwing us in the trash, you had the fucking balls not to care about your Personas and said that if you didn’t want them, we didn’t get to want them either. Well, you know what? Those were _all I ever had._ All I’ll ever have. All the respect I’ll ever get, I earn by clawing my way out of Moros’ hand again, and again, and again. So if you want to apologize for something, if you’re fuckin’ sorry for what you did to me, get down on your fuckin’ knees and beg me to forgive you for being so damned _self-centered_ and not seein’ past your own fuckin’ _nose._ ”

The fuchsia eyes blinked once, twice, and then stared at him in a still silence only punctuated by Jin’s own breathless panting.

“...I’m doing my best to be charitable.” One arm fell to her side, fist clenched in the air as if to draw her absent rapier, and her gaze froze into a steely glare in return. “The Dark Hour is not a toy, and it never was. People _died._ Some because of _you._ ”

“Lots of people die,” Jin muttered, baring his teeth in a sneer. “You would know.”

“I _would_ know,” she snapped back. “My father died; others’ families died; one of my closest friends died -- so we could try to live a life in _peace_. There’s no peace in the Dark Hour.”

“What you don’t get is that the Dark Hour exists whether or not you’re in it.” For a reason he wasn’t certain, he didn’t roll his eyes at her idiocy this time. _Yeah, someone I loved died too, you know. Because of you._ Why not say that one? Maybe because there was always a chance he could make it untrue...or maybe just because the words tangled up and refused to come out. “Shadows are still going to attack people, just less often. Something might change, evolve. Do you want the power to handle it or not?”

“Mina--Arisato’s sacrifice was supposed to block it all.”

“Yeah, it did, it blocked Nyx. That’s nice and all, but the Dark Hour isn’t run by one god. If it were, well, all the Shadows would’ve disappeared. The other side exists because _we_ exist, as a human race. You’re thinking too narrow.” He clawed through his mind until he remembered that no matter how hard he tried, Moros wouldn’t answer. The analytical instinct sat barely out of reach, all his grasping for it in vain. His brain was trapped in a box now, crushed in from all sides, and he could imagine the steel bastard asking if he liked things _now_ , all alone? “How many people around the world have discovered this over, and over, and over again?”

Her lips moved to form words, then paused. Behind his yellow lenses, Jin’s eyes gleamed, and he pried at her as if to pull her closer by will alone. Words tumbled out of him even as he couldn’t think precisely of what they were, but he knew they were what he wanted to say.

“Didn’t think about that, did you? Your guys didn’t create the Dark Hour. They just found it, right? Like you find another civilization on some continent somewhere.” He waved his hand in a _you know what I mean_ gesture. “Someone’s found it before that, or since. And if you leave, you’re giving up any power you could have among the few people who see the Dark Hour.”

“I don’t want power.”

“Yeah, well, I do.”

They exchanged silent stares, the air pulling tight between them, and in the brief moment of stillness a knock interrupted. Mitsuru didn’t look away, though she let herself visibly relax and laced her fingers behind her back.

“Yes?”

“Kirijo-san, you have an urgent visitor.”

Jin tilted his head and peered out the door. One of the hospital staff stood meekly by, fidgeting with a pen half in his pocket, and behind him stood a slender middle-aged woman wearing a prim white pantsuit. Without introduction or warning, she stepped out from behind her escort and favored Mitsuru with a subtle smile. Jin flinched back at the expression as if it had spat sparks at him.

That was a predator’s look -- not just the calculated close-mouthed smile, but the way her eyes crawled over her target, sizing her up moment by moment. That crinkle of her lids was one of focus, not pleasantry. Nevertheless, Mitsuru turned to greet her, and at that moment her eyes flicked past the woman and landed on him. She looked beyond fake, with a perfect mask of makeup and long azure hair that might have well been a wig, all in all just a wolf in pretty wool clothes. Even so, those eyes bored into him in a way that rattled his spine and flushed adrenaline into his drug-muted body.

“Who the hell is that?” he barked, hoping to get a reaction from the newcomer, to put Mitsuru on edge, anything. “Thought we were havin’ a conversation here. Y’know, like y’wanted.”

Mitsuru offered a shallow bow, which her guest immediately returned. “Pardon me, Teruya-san. I need to finish here before we meet. I lost track of time, but we still have five minutes.”

“Yamagishi-san is waiting downstairs, and the two of us are ready to discuss with you. I’m afraid something has come up, and we had to move the meeting forward.” Teruya offered a regretful expression. Her wrist gleamed as she stepped back, a fancy watch catching the light, and Jin squinted at it. Something was wrong with it, but his sleepy mind couldn’t quite put together _what._ He had seen the brand before, somewhere, but where? What was so important about it? Damnit.

“Now?”

“I’m afraid I must insist.”

Mitsuru sighed and turned toward him. “I’m sorry. If this were any less than immediately urgent, I would stay.”

He shrugged and turned to lie on his back again, and Mitsuru retreated to the hallway. As the two and their staff guide disappeared from view, it hit him: _it’s mechanical. No crystal. The brand’s not made anymore._ He had scoured the internet long ago for a cheap knockoff of that line so that he could have a watch that would keep going during the Dark Hour. Batteries didn’t work, but springs and gears still did. _Somebody wants to fuck around at midnight and know when to get out of sight in time._

Groaning his irritation, he fumbled at the nightstand for his phone. Should he give Mitsuru a hint? Did she know? Was this worth helping an enemy over? If there was a third party causing problems in the Dark Hour, neither SEES nor himself probably wanted the intrusion.

 _That fucking hacker might get in the way if I do. Who knows what they know about me and whether my phone’s tapped._ He let his head flop back and fell asleep with the phone still in his hand. _I’ve gotta get out of here._ Dragging his laptop onto his legs from the end of his bed, he flipped it open and then froze with his hands over the keys.

He was being watched. He couldn’t contact Aigis without giving someone else potential access. Well, else-else. Whoever her attacker was, had already become entrenched. Would adding another person to the mix make things better or worse?

Worse. He couldn’t afford to have her sniped out from beneath him.

 _Shit._ He slammed the screen back down. Could he whip up some kind of barrier to keep the “guardian” at bay until he got some messages out? Was the hacker even bothering to watch him? He didn’t have the brain to crunch through this problem right now, and that within itself was the greater issue.

He couldn’t stay on the blockers. Nice though it was to have his life back, it just wasn’t worth it to be chained to this bed. He had taken his chances with Moros for seventeen years now; what was one more day, one more week?

The difference between life and death, really. Was life so worth it that he should stay here and let them play with him to find out what would keep him Persona-free?

 _Hell no._ He wadded up the sheet corner and pressed it down on the IV in his right arm, then leaned on it to hold it down while he curled his hand around and pulled the tube free. A slow orange trickle pattered on the floor as it fell away. Hopefully what was still in his body would hold for at least an hour or so while he got some distance, but regardless, as he tugged out the other drip, he figured would take his chances and get out while Mitsuru was occupied.

Besides, he was mid-agreement. He didn’t back out of his promises. He had promised to restore Takeru for Aoi, just like he had promised to bring Takaya back, just like he had promised to go down into Tartarus and stall SEES and thus let the only person he ever really cared for die in the first place. _We could have died together._

He bit his lip hard and shook his head. No. No, he couldn’t get like this now. He had places to go and things to finish. The past was gone. Gone. Just...just gone. Replaced with steel and determination.

_Welcome back, you bastard. That shit goes away fast, doesn’t it?_

A deep knowing settled in the pit of his stomach, and he sighed and kicked his legs out of bed. His ribs burned white-hot as he moved, but at least the tears that brought to his eyes covered up the tears of despair, and he turned to open the computer again. Fuck it, he couldn’t stay cut off, security be damned.

_Hey, bot. You know where to find me. I’ll be there tonight. Hit me up._

_Hello, human. Your request is noted, both of the meeting and of the combat._

As much shit as he gave her, at least she had a sense of humor. Maybe she wasn’t so different from everyone else; maybe she just covered up all her pain with laughter and quips, just like all the rest of sentience seemed to. Maybe dolphins did it too. Who knew.

 _Get back on topic,_ Moros reminded him with an ambiguous surge of adrenaline. Grabbing a napkin from the bedside table, he fumbled around for the pen one of the nurses had left and scribbled a message. As much as it burned him, he did owe Mitsuru _something_ for breaking Moros’ ring and buying him that much more time. For whatever dumbass reason, she did seem to care about keeping him alive, and she had tried to be gentle with him. _There ain’t no cure for stupidity._ Even if the stupidity helped him.

_Your blue hair woman knows about the Dark Hour. She’s got a mechanical watch. Keep eyes on your six. Aigis is fine, she’s working with me, she’ll find you when she can do that without danger. I’m helping her out. Someone’s gotten into her head. Get Fuuka on the case. I’m headed to the capitol._

There, that was good enough. He sucked in a painful breath, dumped his laptop into the briefcase, strapped it in place, and nearly bowled over a doctor on his way out of the room. Before he could protest, Jin was around the corner at the end of the hallway and gone.

  
  


“These, together, are the Keres.” Teruya tapped at her screen, and images of several semi-mechanical harpies arranged themselves in a neat grid. “Monitors, patrols, gatherers, and combatants in the Metaverse. They replace humans and androids alike.”

“Why are these better than our Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapons?” Mitsuru beckoned the screen closer, and when Teruya pushed it toward her, she pried at the touchscreen to widen one of the models’ windows. In the corner was a label, _Version 0.9.1 Soldier._ A stream of cables ran down its back like Medusa’s hair, waving in the air and spitting sparks. Razor talons hummed with power, and metal feathers covered its body in an armored lattice. Great wide wings sprouted from its shoulders, the remnants of hands merged into their form.

“Because,” she said with a vulpine smile, “they aren’t physical at all. There is no risk of damage or corruption from human sources, and they need almost no human-world resources. Put simply, a Ker can’t be broken, stolen, or disassembled. It doesn’t ask for food, water, or housing. It doesn’t require pay, care, or intellectual understanding. There are no pesky philosophical problems of consent or free will.”

The last word lowered Fuuka’s brows. “...No intellect or free will? How are they different from Shadows, then? I don’t understand.”

“That’s just the point, Yamagishi-san. They aren’t, and neither are Personas.” With that, she tapped on the projector hastily propped on a few books. Her audience’s attention moved to the white panel on the wall at their table’s end, any words of protest drowned out by the presumption of an answer to their unspoken questions.

“Ever since the initial discovery of Nyx, the Tokyo branch has been investigating the remains of the -- forgive the ‘dirty word,’ Kirijo-sama -- Ergonomics Laboratory’s experiments and what data we retrieved from the site.”

“You mean, since you were connected to our servers, you were free to access whatever you wished, since there was no chance of contamination as long as you didn’t go to Iwatodai itself.” Mitsuru folded her arms and bit back some hasty words. She couldn’t find too much information about the old branch labs in Tokyo, but they seemed to have fled at a _very_ convenient time to let the poor victims back at Headquarters die in the Ergo experiments while still benefiting from them. That felt so conspiracy-theory to think, but the nagging idea wouldn’t leave her alone.

“Correct.” Teruya called up several images with a flick of her hand. “In Tokyo, we call your Dark Hour the Metaverse. It’s a known phenomenon, and when not greatly disturbed, it is remarkably consistent and accessible. Still, it requires a certain mental presence, as we determined during the Ergo Lab’s years, that most people simply do not have.”

“Yes, Personas. We know this, Teruya-san.” Mitsuru sighed under her breath. “The entire Ergonomics experimental protocol was designed to find them, and they did. Where is this going?”

She spun the clicker in the palm of one hand. “The ‘Ergonomics experimental protocol’ was a disaster. The actual experiments -- in formality, useless. No one could ever write a paper with that many variables unchecked. And the _ethical considerations._ ” Her tone flared dramatic.

“ _Teruya-san_.”

She held up a finger as if to shush Mitsuru in the guise of continuing her point. “The results showed us something very important on an informal, theoretical level. Personas and Shadows are _the same._ Notice how they have the same abilities, the same ‘spells.’ They follow the same symbolic patterns, the same ‘Arcana.’ Most importantly, just like Personas ‘speak’ and ‘rebel,’ Shadows have a certain intellect, and they can and do communicate with their conscious counterparts.”

“That doesn’t mean the Shadows we see are the same as someone’s Persona, right?” Fuuka glanced at her friend, and Mitsuru shook her head in general disbelief.

“No.” Teruya changed her slide with a flourish. “We detect two kinds of Shadows in the Metaverse, that we call Lower and Higher Shadows. Lower Shadows are generic -- they’re blends produced from trends in the human psyche. Higher Shadows are person-specific; they’re untamed Personas, parts of the mind that are not yet tamed. The only -- _only_ \-- difference between a Higher Shadow and a Persona is human control.”

“That’s hard to accept.” Mitsuru laced her fingers, her tone falling away as the message sank in. That wasn’t quite true; it was remarkably easy to accept in a few cases, but was _she_ just using a Shadow? Perhaps her enemies were, but she had come to terms with her situation, yes?

Right?

“I see where you’re headed with this, I think,” Fuuka murmured. “You looked at the Ergonomics data and theorized that all the subjects’ summoned Personas were in fact uncontrolled, untamed beings -- Shadows. And that this is what caused such hostility to their users. The lack of control is the disease, not the symptom.”

“Correct. And,” she rose to stand by the projector screen and held out her arm, clicking the slide, “from that knowledge, we have created the Keres: an artificial Metaverse network tailored using the data from the Ergonomics Shadows.”

“Using...Teruya-san, you said yourself that the data are unreliable.” Mitsuru shook her head and turned away from the images. “Only a few were ever retrieved, and most were disasters that fell apart and killed their users. The ones that weren’t--”

“Were stronger than any of yours.” Her voice snapped and then fell silent, the resulting crack in the air hovering ominously before fading away. “And, yes, I said unreliable, but in a _formal setting._ We can’t publish papers, but we can use the information. Consider, if you will, how much of a history this practice has in psychology.”

She opened her mouth to object, but the words fell flat. Yes, all of the Strega Personas were solidly more well-rounded and better equipped for solo survival than any of SEES’ more “conventional” specialized Personas, and they were simply more durable to boot. It took a full group to bring down two of them at once. The last battle with Moros had been, as Fuuka might have put it in her gamer lingo, “cheesy.” They used a cheap trick to win, and who knew if it could work twice? Still, the bond between Persona-or-Shadow and human were too tenuous in that situation.

“How do you intend to command these? The Ergo Shadows were too dangerous for most people to handle -- I’d say any people, given their effects on their users.”

“Simple: make it a Persona instead.” A node network appeared on the screen, the images of the various Ker models all connected to each other just so, then to a human figure. “Every Ker is part of a hub; as a whole, each of the Keres units is a small army of fragmented Shadows, bound to a central Persona.”

“But, you said--”

“The Persona, being what it is, will be controlled and _controllable_. A graft onto a real human.”

Fuuka stammered in surprise before finding her words. “That’s very insecure. One point of contact? No checks and balances, no restraints? And, putting a foreign Persona onto an already whole person? That can’t lead anywhere safe, from my perspective.”

“It has already been done.” Teruya waved away her concerns with a flip of her slender hand. “I have come here with a demonstration as well -- I am a prototype, myself. I had no manifested Persona to clash with the Keres hub mind, and as such, I could easily receive the graft. I will demonstrate its potential tonight at midnight.”

Mitsuru fell silent, and when Fuuka glanced at her, she looked back. Wary emotions flitted between them, and beneath the table, Mitsuru laced her fingers tight together. She took a deep breath and held it a few seconds while gathering her thoughts.

“Kirijo Electronics hasn’t had an experimental division since Ergonomics.” She set her hands on the table and leaned toward her colleague. “We burned so much public confidence, and money, and human resources of all kinds, in that fire. Why now, Teruya-san? Why bring back Metaverse research? It was nothing but disaster the first time.”

Cobalt eyes burned into her, familiar in their intensity, and she wondered where she had seen them before. “Because the Metaverse is alive and well elsewhere, Kirijo-sama, and either _we_ control it, or someone _else_ controls it. It is a new and untainted frontier, and as human beings are wont to do, someone is already exploring it.”

  
  


Fuuka and Mitsuru took defensive stances in the hospital entrance, Juno forming a shield around the navigator. Inside the bubble, Fuuka’s hair floated around her head like a halo of teal light.

“I’m worried about this, Mitsuru,” she mumbled, glancing to make sure Teruya hadn’t heard. “The Dark Hour, er, Metaverse, is too dangerous to treat like a new continent we can just plant a flag on.”

“I know. Still, if the splinter lab is this far ahead on Metaverse research, we need to take hold of the reins. It’s all we can do.” She stifled a sigh and raised her chin to keep her head from hanging. “ She’s right that whoever manages a foothold first is going to be the most capable for a long time, and better us than anyone else.”

Fuuka glanced aside at her, then back to where Teruya stood in the street. “I don’t think we’re ready for that kind of responsibility.”

“No one can be.”

Turning to face them, the white-suited woman held out her arms to either side, and a black haze welled up in the air around her. As it coalesced into a long row of identical humanoid clouds, red eyes opened in each smoky head, and all of them seemed to focus on the hospital doors in unison.

“Brace,” Mitsuru muttered. Yet, after the creatures burst from their mist in a silent single puff, they stood idle and ready, none moving from their spot. Twenty harpies crouched still like statues, wings raised to launch, separated neatly by class as they stretched in either direction.

“Perfectly controllable.” She twisted her palms downward, and her soldiers splayed out into a rough battle formation with a single collective leap. 

“Perfectly maneuverable.” They rose with a synchronized flap of their wings, taking up positions on nearby buildings.

“Perfectly _complete._ ” The two who still stood next to Teruya, on her single nod of command, barked two shrill pings that washed over their observers and out into the streets.

“Scanning,” Fuuka whispered. “Juno reads that one is looking for position, motion, and combat parameters of targets, and the other is mapping.”

“A team in a bottle.” Mitsuru folded her arms, but they held weakly to each other as she tried not to sway. Where was all of this when SEES needed it? How obsolete were they now, since one person could control all this? As the rest of the squad adjusted themselves into hunting formations, Teruya held up a hand.

“We detect one target in the area, outside the hospital. Human. Persona-capable.” She made a _shoo_ motion toward the harpies, and off they flew in a storm of silver and flesh-red, racing through the moonlight. 

_Who..._ Mitsuru’s eyes widened. Aigis? Could they tell a human from a robot? Aigis had one power mode, and that was _kill._ “Wait, don’t! The people here are very strong, and I don’t know how--”

“We have numbers, Kirijo-sama.” Teruya smiled broadly and shook her head. One of her hands curled loosely into a fist. “He should be easy to retrieve.”

 _No, it’s Jin._ She glanced up at the hospital windows. He had left already? Presumably the only time he could have fled was when they were in the meeting. But the blockers...how long would he survive out there? “Don’t engage. We don’t want a fight with that one.”

Teruya’s arched brows drew together. “I see. Well, then, perhaps another time you’ll see Keres’ combat prowess. Even so, now you understand the ability of this system...shall we decide our terms?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much more to say about this, except that the full cast is just about shown.


End file.
